ASUS RT-N56U - 300Mbps Dual Band Wireless N Router. 802.11n, Hardware NAT, 5 Internal Antennas, Fast Gigabit Ethernet, Wireless HD content streaming, 3 Year Warranty

The first thing you want to do when you get the router is to set up wireless security settings of "WPA2 Personal" and enter your own password into the "WPA-PSK Key" box to avoid potential interlopers from simply accessing the unprotected router and changing settings at will for their own nefarious purposes.

NOTE: you need to change wireless security settings for BOTH the 2.4GHz and 5GHz tabs to secure the router, as they use separate settings.

To access the router's web interface after connecting to it either via ethernet or wireless one needs to type in the address bar of a browser:

192.168.1.1

and enter the default username and password of:

admin
admin

To get this router working with my Virgin Media cable I had to switch the MODEM off and then on again. It wouldn't automatically work by using the "Quick Internet Setup" button in the router's settings without power cycling the MODEM. This is a minor problem, as it only took me around 10-20 seconds to perform the reset, and it may not happen to you. After that, I could browse the web straight away.

Once I had determined that I could connect to the internet perfectly fine, I visited the official ASUS site to upgrade the firmware of the router (which at the time of writing is 1.0.1.8d). As I apparently cannot post links in Amazon reviews, no matter how innocent they may be, you can find the firmware update by typing "ASUS RT-N56U" into Google, clicking the first result and then the "Download" tab. Extract the downloaded archive to a directory of your choice and then enter the router's configuration page and click the "Advanced Setting" button, "Administration", "Firmware Upgrade" tab. Then click the "Browse..." button next to the box labeled "New Firmware File". Locate the firmware update file on your hard drive, click OK to all the warnings and do not allow your wireless or (preferably) ethernet connection to be interrupted whilst the upgrade is in progress. It will take around 3 minutes, and the progress bar appears to be pretty accurate as to when the operation will be complete (the router is reset in the process), so I wouldn't recommend touching it until it reaches 100%.

NOTE: Custom firmware has been developed for this router recently, and contains a huge number of fixes, enhancements and new features. Take a look at this review's comments for links.

After the router firmware upgrade had successfully completed, I happened to notice that my wireless connection was not running at full bandwidth. It seemed to be stuck at around 130mbps rather than the ~300mbps that Wireless mode N is capable of. I discovered this by right clicking on my wireless network in the Windows System Tray and clicking "Status". I did some reading up and discovered that it was because the router needed to be operating in "Bonded Channel Mode" which, apparently, it is not set to by default. To achieve this, I once again loaded up the router's web interface settings and clicked "Advanced Setting > Wireless" then set the "Channel bandwidth" to "20 / 40MHz" as opposed to the default of "20". I then set the router's "Wireless Mode" to operate in N "only", as well as setting my Wireless adapter in Windows Control Panel > System > Device Manager to WirelessN only mode or "802.11n". This may not be necessary if your adapter operates at 5GHz and you are connected at that wavelength and certainly not recommended if your wireless adapter isn't capable of the WirelessN standard at all, since forcing a Wireless Mode in the router settings that your adapter isn't capable of will leave you unable to connect wirelessly to the router.

My next task was to see if I could open a port for the Torrent network. This was easily achieved by visiting the "Advanced Setting > Port Forwarding" button under the WAN heading in the router's settings and adding a new entry in the list with the "Service Name" of "BitTorrent" (or whatever you would like to name it) "Port Range" of "6881" (without quotes) then selecting the local IP from the drop down box. Enter protocol "Both" and then click the "Add" button and press the "Apply" button below it. I then verified, by performing a port scan and checking the status of my Torrent client, that the port was indeed open and accepting traffic.

I happened to notice upon running a port scan test that port 21 appeared to be permanently "closed" (detectable remotely, but not accepting traffic) as opposed to completely "stealthed" (unreachable remotely). This port is normally reserved for FTP traffic. Whilst the "closed" status is normally secure enough, I would not leave it to chance and so discovered a way to stealth it completely. Go to the "Advanced Setting > Firewall > Lan to WAN Filter" tab and look at the LAN to WAN filter table, which is currently blank. If you want to completely block port 21 off from the outside then you need to add a new blacklist entry for the "Port Range" of "21". Protocol "TCP", Add and Apply.

So, after I had performed all these steps, I was fairly happy with how the Router was performing for me. I have read in a number of places that the Firmware simply isn't advanced enough for other people's needs and they hope for a version of DD-WRT (open source third-party firmware) that supports the ASUS RT-N56U. I tend to agree with them, but so far this router hasn't cut me off from any essential features that I personally require, so that's good enough for me.

I live in a flat which, thankfully, has very well built walls, which is of course desireable. The only issue is, inevitably, wireless reception.

I wanted a router to replace a DIR615 connected to my VM Superhub, which can not only provide a strong signal throughout, but also be able to handle multiple devices (at last count, I have 15+ devices connected through gigabit/WLAN, from my Panasonic VT30 to ReadyNas to Sonos) with no sweat. I put the Asus in router mode, and put the superhub in Modem mode. It picked up my configuration instantly and I was up and running with basics working within a few minutes.

You have to understand that when you buy a router like this, you have to step in and configure it to get the best out of it. I had issues where my Sonos would not bridge the other zones correctly, which was resolved when I changed the router IP to 192.168.0.1.

So far, the router has been fantastic. 2.4ghz signal remains full throughout the flat, even in areas the DIR-615 was barely 1 bar. All our devices work perfectly (iPads, laptops, SGS2, iPhone 4S) with no dropouts as we had before. I have also noticed an increase in transfer speeds between my ReadyNas and PC, as well as a nominal increase in NTP transfer speeds (perhaps as a result of using better routing in the Asus than Superhub)

I personally don't mind the interface, though some items took a bit of digging around to find. The only issue is the 5ghz signal is weak, though AI Radar I presume has been retweaking the signal, as it is slowly getting stronger. This is not an issue as all devices I want to use 5ghz are within a good range.

All in all, a great looking router, and works great.

I bought this router because there were so many positive reviews.

I'm not a network geek and I'm sure it does a lot of amazing things, but I bought it to be able to work from home and get a good signal. When I set it up (which seemed pretty straightforward) I found that the signal was weaker than my existing Netgear WGR614v9 (25% vs 80%) in the same location. I read some forums and once I followed some of the suggested settings it did improve. However, the principle requirement for me was to be able to connect to my company VPN. This router simply would not do that. I wish I'd read up on this aspect first because there are plenty of people with the same issue. Some reportedly managed to connect after changing various configs, but at the expense of disabling NAT. I couldn't get it to work at all - even on a wired connection. I gave up and sent it back.

This router clearly has a lot of functionality that many are happy with, but if it's VPN that you need, then this probably isn't the router for you. I switched back to my Netgear and sent the Asus back. I'm still looking for an N router, but think I'll get one from a shop where I can specifically ask about this issue.