Netgear Range Max Dual Band Wireless-N Gigabit Router

Decided it was time to move with the times, since wireless Internet arrived in our household around 7 years ago in the guise of a Bullalo GR54...oh how things have changed !

One button press on the Netgear WNDR3700 followed by a button press on, 2 laptops, Canon MP 620 printer and a Netgaeat 5ghz access point and away you go.

Also my Office PC via gigabyte ethernet, A PS3 via gigabyte ethernet, daughters pc via gigabyte ethernet.

So, So easy, no assigning IPs or anything like that, I have added a Freecom 250gb external usb hard drive to the network via the WNDR3700s USB, put a music folder, movie folder and homework folder.

This Router is superb, nothing upsets it, as I write this Daughter 1 is watching streamed movie, Daughter 2 is playing an online game via laptop and wife is watching a movie downstairs via the 5ghz link and its all running so smooth.

I paired this up with a netgear WNHDE111 access point that I got off ebay, again one putton push and away we go. That is situated diagonaly opposite in the house (ie one floor down, three rooms away 25m...ish)hooked up to this is a the new AC Ryan Playon HD player and again as I write it is streaming HD quality with full DTS sound out put.

With this setup I do not need to turn on my main PC to stream media anywhere in the house (or street)the WNDR 3700 also has a simple button on the front to press and turn off both networks, thereby saving power and reducing exposure to RF.

As soon as I hooked the unit up it asked if I wanted to update firmware, I said OK, it did it automaticaly and asked for a restart, since then pure plain sailing, no dropped connections, no glitching whilst streaming.I hope 5ghz stays this good, but as the word spreads I guess it will get a little crowded down here!

I do not know what else is out there that beats this router for function and performance, I read up, and read up and read up, then finally selected this over a dlink 855, OK it was a bit more expensive but not by much.

Bought through Amazon Marketplace, usual speedy delivery, even though it was despatched from Germany.

In summary.

Pros:
1. Big internet upload/download speed improvement over my old 3Com combo modem/router/switch
2. Improved reliability over my old 3Com - fewer timeouts and dropped VPN connections
3. Big speed improvement in wireless performance between 802.11n and 802.11g
4. VPN passthrough support less tolerant than old 3Com (also a con, see below)

Cons:
1. Requirement for an external ethernet modem (a nuisance and cost but not a big deal)
2. VPN passthrough support less tolerant than old 3Com - took several days of trouble-shooting which eventually required a Cisco VPN client upgrade - not the router's fault, but a pain
3. 5GHz 802.11n wireless range very limited (to be expected)
4. 2.4GHz 802.11n wireless range more limted than 802.11g (to be expected, but more limited than I expected)
5. Harder to see DSL connection status, faults, diagnostics when using an external modem makes fault finding trickier
6. (getting very picky now) Can light up a room with its array of very bright LEDs

Bottom line:
Excellent, dearer than basic products but works well. Not for the novice.

In detail.

I bought this as a replacement for a 4 year old 3Com 802.11G DSL modem/router/hub. I wanted dual band wireless N (with both bands simultaneously active - look carefully, many other products don't do this, the giveaway is normally the price, if it's much less than £100 it probably isn't simultaneous), but also wanted gbit wired ports too.

Having shopped around a bit I settled on this as being the nearest to my requirements. To move closer to perfection it would have had to have had a built in DSL modem, but in all my searching I couldn't find a simultaneous dual-band wireless N device with gbit ports and a built in DSL modem, there is just about every other permutation of the various technologies, but as of now, no-one (I looked at Netgear, Linksys, D-Link, Vigor and a few other more obscure brands) seems to combine all three.

The above is an important point. For those who haven't read or don't understand the specs of this device, you cannot connect it directly to a BT (or other provider) ADSL (broadband) connection. You need a separate ethernet modem. Other reviewers have marked this router down because of this point, but it's perfectly clear from the spec and if you don't understand this or what you need to use to overcome this, then it's probably not the product for you. Because of the lack of a built in modem I've combined mine with a separate Ethernet Modem (I've used a Vigor V120, but I'm sure Netgear's own product would do the job just as well).

I had a big problem getting my company's VPN client to work through this and was about to return the router as a result. However, some extensive testing revealed the problem to be with the ancient version of the Cisco VPN client I was using, not with the router. A VPN client upgrade fixed my problem and it's been solid as a rock since. The dificulty here is that the router provides very little diagnostic and logging detail and combined with the need to use an external modem, makes diagnostics rather tricky. Don't let this put you off though.

The 802.11n range on both 5GHz and 2.4GHz signals is more limited than the range of my old 802.11g device, but this is to be expected. It is quite a bit more limited than I had expected though. My old 802.11g device could happily deliver a reliable (though poor) signal through two thick walls across a range of about 30M. The 5GHz signal barely makes it through a single wall and only about 30M with no obstruction at all. The 2.4GHz signal can penetrate the walls but won't reach as far as the old 802.11g device did. However, it is running at higher data rates, so I'm not surprised by this and the beauty of having simultaneous 2.4GHz & 5GHz signals is that it doesn't matter if the range of the 5GHz signal is short because you can still pick up the 2.4GHz.

If you're connecting this to a DSL broadband connection, this is not one for the novice. You'll need to know what you've bought, what else you need to make it work and how to configure it. It's not complicated, but does require a small amount of knowledge or (heaven forbid) reading the manual.

Overall I'm really pleased. My Internet speeds and reliability have improved and the wireless performance is far better. Getting to the bottom of my VPN issues was a pain, but this isn't really the router's fault, it just didn't give me a lot of information to help in diagnosing the problem. Would definitely recommend.

I was a little concerned to read some of the negative comments regarding this product before buying it. I needed to upgrade an ageing 54g router which had started to become unreliable. All the negative comments concern, speed of the router, wireless range, even it's capability of hooking up a USB hard disk to act as an NAS device. I have always had very positive experience of Netgear's networking products and this is no exception. For all the people who are disappointed with the performance or have problems with this router clearly do not know what they are doing. This device was a breeze to set up and works like a charm. I hooked up a 2Tb LaCie hard disk to the USB port - it worked straightaway so am able to stream HD content and uncompressed music wirelessly to various computers around a large house, My Xbox 360 saw the media streaming functions of the Router straight away there was no setup problems there, PS3 owners would also find it equally easy, I could also tune the Routers QoS functions to optimize its speed for online gaming. It has so many advanced networking features that are tailored to home entertainment network enthusiasts, and those people are who is router is really marketed at. If you are looking for something that will just make your internet quicker without changing anything else or give you greater range over a large area this is not the product for you and you need to be considering a different combination of home networking products to achieve that. Overall I am extremely impressed with the array of functions and performance of this router, I get blazingly quick wireless connection speeds on my laptop and desktop, and there are so many features to accommodate any current or future facet of wireless entertainment networking for the home, that you just can't go wrong with this device. A super-league router, that packs an abundance of useful features into an expected higher price tag, but is ultimately worth every penny.