Netgear Wireless-N 300 Router with DSL Modem

 

 

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I have a review of the actual router a bit further down, but I think the following is useful information to anyone who wants to upgrade to a wireless N (300mbps) network from a standard wireless G (54mbps) network. I've read a lot of reviews of people who were disappointed that it did not live up to their expectations, and I hope the following explains why and how to overcome such issues.

** OPTIMISING YOUR WIRELESS N NETWORK **

Okay, so since this a wireless N router, when you connect a wireless N laptop or computer to it, you should get super fast speeds, right? Unfortunately this is not the case.

All wireless N routers have to be backwards compatible (so that they work with the older G/B speeds). As soon as you connect a non N laptop/iPhone/computer, any components of your network that could run at full N speeds will be severely throttled. What's more, there are many devices out there (smart phones, older wifi cards etc) that don't support the newer WPA2 encyption method that is required for 300mbps speeds. So you could end up buying this router and having none of the benefits because you end up using WEP encryption to allow older (and slower) devices to connect to your network.

If you are in this situation and still have access to your previous router, the optimum solution is the following. Use this new router as your primary one. Label its SSID (the wifi name that appears when you search for networks) to something like "NETGEAR_N" (basically you'll have two different names that are easy to tell apart), and set up your broadband to connect to this one. You will use this router as the DHCP server (the component that assigns all IP addresses in your network). Make sure you set the wifi speed to 300mbps and the encryption to WPA2.

Now, take you older router (mine is the standard Thomson router shipped with O2/Be and others). Disable its DHCP server (you can only have one enabled in any network), and set its encryption to WEP (the older but still reliable standard). Rename its SSID to something like "NETGEAR_G". Now, connect NETGEAR_G to NETGEAR_N using a standard ethernet cable into their regular ethernet sockets (i.e. don't use one that says "WAN" on it. There will probably be four such sockets.)

There may be some tweaking needed to get the IP addresses to all work - for any network to operate correctly you basically need to ensure that the first three blocks of numbers agree (eg. 192.168.1.XXX). My Thomson router was fixed to the address 192.168.1.254, so I changed the Netgear router to 192.168.1.1 and made sure it only assigned IP addresses in the range 192.168.1.2 to 192.168.1.253 (so as to avoid conflicts with either router). You may also have to manually select the channel the wifis operate on to avoid clashing (although I selected AUTO in both cases and this seems to work just fine).

Now - you're done! You have two networks broadcasting. Only connect older wireless G devices to NETGEAR_G, and your newer wireless N devices to NETGEAR_N. By doing this, the newer Netgear router doesn't have to constantly throttle back its speeds to accommodate your older, slower devices. All IP addresses are assigned by your new router so there are no conflicts. What's more, devices on either network can still communicate with one-another - for example a computer in NETGEAR_G can still share files with another computer in NETGEAR_N.

** THE ROUTER ITSELF **

Okay, onto the router itself. I've found it to be very good so far. High speed wifi access (as in - better than 54mbps) is generally rock solid - I get 150mbps quoted on my computer. Obviously, this translates to around 60mbps of actual transfer rates, but that is still a huge increase on the roughly 20mbps you can get from wireless G. When I did have my router running in mixed (B/G/N) mode, that figure dropped down to 58mbps (so barely above the 54mbps G mode). It was this drop that prompted me to investigate how to separate G from N and avoid this mixed mode. If you are not in a position to do this, don't expect fast speeds from your wireless N devices.

The options in the router menus are sufficient enough to get everything above working well. If you're using O2 internet, I found that I also had to change the MAC address on my router to match the one O2 sent out - otherwise my internet wouldn't work. Again, this router's set up options were detailed enough that I was able to do this.

The USB sharing facility works as well as I would expect it to. Obviously, if you were to connect an external hard drive directly to a computer it will normally read/write around 15-20MB/sec. I've seen people complain that they don't get those speeds through the ReadyShare option on the router. This is to be expected - as I said above, even in good conditions on a wireless N network, actual throughput can realistically be around 60mbps (7.5MB/sec). So a reduction in speeds should be anticipated. If you go one further and connect at wireless G speeds, then 20mbps equates to about 2.5MB/sec - which explains the "slow" speeds other reviewers have achieved. The best you can hope for is about 10MB/sec if you connect your computer to the router with a wired (ethernet connection). If you're looking for super fast (i.e. not bandwidth limited) file sharing, I suggest you purchase a Gigabit ethernet router. For what it was intended to achieve, this option works as well as it could possibly have.

You also have extra options with the USB sharing facility. You can set up separate directories as individual shares - you don't need to simply share the whole disk as one option. This means that you can have a central storage facility and divide it up into separate folders. An example might be sharing the music to everyone, but password protecting more sensitive documents.

The range of the router in native N mode (up to 300mbps as it calls it in its settings) is excellent. It's certainly an improvement over my older router. I have the following connected to it:

1 x computer wired (100mbps ethernet)
1 x media streamer (100mbps ethernet)
1 x wireless N computer
1 x second router (which connects 2 wireless G computers and a few smart phones)

The consistency of my internet connection is a big improvement over the old Thomson router. It has Quality of Services (QoS) options designed to ensure that streaming items such as video (e.g. YouTube or iPlayer) don't get any drop off in bandwidth. So if you're in a house where you share your internet connection among several computers, this is a good feature to have. You can go one further and actually specify a total bandwidth available to any individual computer - this way if one computer is downloading a large file, the internet isn't completely sucked away by it for other users.

Finally, the router also has good uPnP options. Port forwarding and the like are all easy to do (and in many cases are achieved automatically). These settings are typically used for online gaming (e.g. Steam). The only stumbling block I found was that the assignments are done by IP address and not by device name, however this is easily overcome by forcing the router to assign the same IP address to any given computer on the network.

Overall, if set up correctly, I think this is an excellent midrange router. I hope this was all helpful.

There are no reviews of this product yet so I thought I would be the first. I bought the router to replace a Netgear DG834G. My 834 was excellent and as I didn't have any problems with it I wanted to stick with Netgear if possible. I considered the DGN 2000 but was put off by the poor reviews on Amazon so went for this modem/router which I think is newer than the 2000.
I don't know much about setting up wireless networks and so was pleased when I found the product came with a smart wizard set up. Unfortunately, the smart wizard didn't work as it wouldn't recognise the router. This forced me to follow the advanced set up instructions and do the configuration via a browser window. I managed this surprisingly easily.
The router is in a home office next to our lounge. The wall between the two rooms is quite thick. The reason for upgrading to a wireless N 300 router was to get a wireless signal in both the lounge and the bedroom. The 834 signal was not strong enough. Before the change my ipod would pick up a poor signal in both the lounge and the bedroom but neither my Samsung laptop or my HTC desire phone would connect. Once the DGN 2200 was up and running all three devices would pick up a signal in both the lounge and the bedroom. The laptop pickup is good enough to stream BBC iplayer. The Desire struggles a little but I think that is due to the very poor antenna on this phone rather than the modem. So the DGN 2200 does what I bought it for.
I checked the firmware and it was delivered with the latest version so I didn't have to worry about upgrading this. Thank you Amazon.

Easy to install; works well; no more dropped connections!! The on-off button at the back is very handy - no more losing the cable down the back of the desk when you want to disconnect and reconnects very quickly when you switch it on again. Works with o2 Home Broadband (we had tried a Belkin N router only to discover it was incompatible with o2.)

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4.0 out of 5 stars Netgear Wireless-N 300 Router with DSL Modem
Bought as previous Netgear Modem Router had given up the ghost!
It does what is says really. Reliable signal, good connection and better coverage.

Published 1 day ago by Graham Burbridge

5.0 out of 5 stars great router!
great wifi range, great controller interface.. ive always been a fan of Netgear, this is the second router / modem i have bought from them, the old one is still going strong 6... Read more

Published 9 days ago by C. Leslie

2.0 out of 5 stars Netgear wireless N 300 with DSL modem
This unit failed after three weeks, ordered another one which I received the next day however it was worse than the first. Read more

Published 15 days ago by sh4un65

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent router
This router is much better than the one I had before and does all it says. Simple to set up and wireless is fast. Read more

Published 22 days ago by No Stoppin'

2.0 out of 5 stars Good throughput but very flakey
I wanted to love this but after four months of persisting with it, I am giving up. Here's why:

The good: I have a fair bit of activity on my home network; Time Machine... Read more

Published 1 month ago by Jimbo P

5.0 out of 5 stars Quick and Easy Setup
I eventually got fed up with the useless Thomson router which my ISP supplied crashing my wireless printer and decided to replace. Read more

Published 1 month ago by Alopex

4.0 out of 5 stars Decent Router, Few Faults.
Bought this to replace our old TalkTalk branded router, took out of the box & connected with ethernet to run software. Read more

Published 1 month ago by jonathanitb

5.0 out of 5 stars reliable router
Setting up was very easy, both using the instalation wizzard and also using manual settings to enable me to set the router up with the same config as previous routers (saves time... Read more

Published 1 month ago by JP

3.0 out of 5 stars Netgear 2200
Having read a good review for Netgear 2200 combined with TalkTalk, I decided to replace my old Netgear Modem/Router. Installation instructions were good and all worked well. Read more

Published 1 month ago by Teds

5.0 out of 5 stars Very easy to set up.
Brought as a Christmas gift for my parents. I installed using provided Disk and on screen instructions. Orange login details were accepted first time. Read more

Published 1 month ago by Mr B

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