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Product Description
Manufacturer's Description NETGEAR DG834N - RangeMax™ NEXT Wireless Router
RangeMax™ NEXT provides ADSL subscribers with whole home, maximum coverage, and bandwidth enabling you and your household to simultaneously connect to multiple Internet services, including online gaming, video streaming, and MP3 downloads.
Cable broadband customers should use the WNR834B RangeMax™ NEXT Wireless N Cable Modem Router - 802.11n, 270mbps.
Maximum Coverage & Bandwidth
NETGEAR's DG834N RangeMax™ NEXT Wireless N ADSL modem router provides maximum coverage and bandwidth, enabling you and your entire household to simultaneously connect to multiple Internet services and online media.
To explain the capabilities of this RangeMax™ NEXT Wireless N modem router further: Imagine connecting to the Internet from anywhere in the house, without a cable. Then imagine everyone in the house connecting at the same time, and all doing things online or over the network - all at the same time: Watching a Hi-Definition video or TV programme in the living room, browsing the Internet in the study, playing online games in the den, downloading MP3 music from the dining room - all at the same time. This is what RangeMax™ NEXT is capable of, all over a single home wireless network that provides a constant, 'rock-steady' connection.
Rock Steady
The DG834N Wireless N Modem Router utilises a technology called 'Steady-Stream', which ensures your wireless network offers a steady constant connection, with sufficient bandwidth available to stream, download, browse the Internet and transfer files all at the same time. With RangeMax™ NEXT Wireless N technology you should not experience any more frustrating interruptions or freezes, just a constant connection that enables you and your household to use the Internet and wireless network as you choose, whenever you choose.
Touchless Wireless Security
Touchless WiFi Security makes creating the highest level of network security easy and includes industry standard wireless encryption standards for you to choose from: WEP, WPA-PSK, or WPA2-PSK. These security features enable you to 'lock-down' your home wireless network, protecting you against unwanted intruders
Easy to Set-Up
The DG834N Wireless N ADSL Modem Router is an easy to set-up, single box solution, it plugs straight into your ADSL line - there is no need for a separate modem. Once the DG834N Wireless N modem router is connected, configuration is also easy, via NETGEAR's Smart Wizard™. The Smart Wizard™ automatically detects your ISP's network settings, and then walks you through each step of the installation process.
Product Description
RangeMax NEXT extends the possibilities of your wireless home network by providing a Steady-Stream of up to 270Mbps, and is compliant with draft 802.11n. This next generation wireless standard utilizes advanced MIMO (Multi-In, Multi-Out) technology, which delivers incredible speed and range, and for the first time provides wireless interoperability at the highest speeds with other products with Intensi-fi. A RangeMax NEXT wireless network creates and maintains stable connections and enough bandwidth to surf the Internet, download MP3s, make Internet phone calls, share files, play network games, and stream high-definition videos, simultaneously at any distance or location in the home or small office. Because RangeMax NEXT is compatible with all legacy b and g wireless products, you are sure to be connected. Preset internal antennas and draft 11n-True-Test, high-performance testing and tuning, provide maximum performance and high-quality streaming every time. NETGEARs Smart WizardTM provides easy setup including configuration of WEP, WPA-PSK or WPA-2 PSK WiFi security. Steady-Stream technology ensures you have enough streaming bandwidth to support all of your applications, all over your home, all at once.
This router does exactly what it says on the tin but to get the best out of it you do need to buy the network cards to go with it as the whole system is almost proprietary . It does work well with legacy equipment but performance is limited though set up was a breeze in all cases, I have never finished an installation with so little effort or head scratching. The pci card is so much better in pure performance terms than the pcmcia card and the proof of the pudding can be summarised in three areas, extended range, very fast throughput and is a doddle to set up. Its not cheap but once you have recovered from the hole in your pocket reliable fast wireless is a joy to use. It looks good too!
I bought this as a plug-in replacement for my excellent Netgear DG824M so installation took literally a few minutes, just a matter of switching on, plugging in the phone line, connecting to the router and entering the broadband username (no password needed with BT). I got 54Mb connections and configurgured the security and it was great. Until I powered it off and restrarted it. Then network speed dropped to 1Mb or less, the range was terrible and I was cursing the unreliable heap of junk. I thought the power cycle had blown something inside.
It hadn't; here was the problem. There are two other networks in range on channel 6 the interference seriously screwed this up. I changed the channel from 6 to 4, and it was back to to 54Mb and full strength.
This is more powerful than the DG824M but not dramatically so. My home PCs around the house used to connect at 24-36 MB and now they connect at 54Mb (with the original cards). Beware though, this router won't connect at 108 Mb, the maximum on 802.11g is 54 Mbs. That's a technical 'feature'.
I installed the WN511B Rangemax card and it did indeed connect at 270 Mb and runs at high speed in the garage behind a few walls, which the old combination didn't. Overall I reckon this combination has increased my usable range by about 50%.
I have had this unit since it came out ages ago. I have never had any problems with it apart from having to move channels due to a number of close wireless routers using the same default channel 6 (I moved it to channel 2 as noted below).
I very occasionally have to restart it (a few times a year), but it has been much more reliable than my previous wireless router in this regard (runs cooler too). Big new is they have just upgraded it to DRAFT 2.0 standard and brough in some nifty new features (see the netgear downloads website) . So apart from from VPN it has every thing I could possibly want. PRE-N Draft 2 is a bit of a gamble, but from what I read if it can be made draft 2 compliant then it should be capable of the full standard when it comes out. When setting up do make sure you have a wireless channel to yourself in your neighbourhood.
Note: I intially had mine set to Channel 6 (default) and was only getting 1-5.5mb connection one floor down from the router using my laptop. I then changed to channel 4 and was getting 170mb and all was fine until someone installed another router locally and kept on knocking me off my connection. So now I am on channel 2 getting 270mb connection even one floor away, Though the ultimate range is not much better that my previous wireless router.
The good points are:
It is easy to setup, is quite comunicative about problems and seems to be much quicker to reboot after any changes than my older unit. Also ultimate range is a bit more.