NETGEAR WGR614 54 Mbps Wireless Router - wireless router > Reviews > You should buy this!!

Author's product rating:   

Speed	Fast
Reliability	Excellent
Ease of Installation	Excellent - very quick and easy
Ease of use	Very easy
Value For Money	Good

Advantages:	Easy to set up and use
Disadvantages:	May have speed issues until firmware upgrade

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

The Netgear WGR614 uses the standard 802.11g and can deliver speeds of up to 54 Mbps. It is a delight to setup using the smart wizard option and very easy to use. You can get it from most electrical or computer retailers. It is compatible with all 802.11g and 802.11b wireless cards and networks

It allows you to set up your own wireless (cable-free) home network so that you can share your cable internet and printing facilities with other computers or laptops in your home that have either built in wireless or an external wireless card. It is compatible with all 802.11b wireless networks and cards.

SETTING THE ROUTER UP
With the router you get the option to use SmartWizard, this is ideal for someone who has never set one up before. When you run it, it will automatically detect and configure your wireless router for practically all of your connections from your internet service provider. There are tutorials also that take you through setting your router up step by step.

USING THE ROUTER
When you log on to your router, you get a help section appear on the right hand side of your screen that gives you tips on how to change your settings. Down the left hand side you have quite a few options such as:

SETUP
Basic settings: Set account login, Dns and mac addresses.

Wireless settings: Set up your wireless names and security.

CONTENT FILTERING
Logs: Here you can see what websites all the users on your network have been accessing.

Block sites: To stop anyone on your network accessing certain sites this is where you can block them.

Block services: Block Services allows you to block Internet access by specific users on your local network based on their IP address.

Schedule: If you have set any of the above two options, here you can define when these blocks will occurr. For example if you only want them blocked on a weekend.

Email: If you have blocked any sites or services you can have alerts sent to you by email if anyones does try to access them.

MAINTENANCE
Router status: You can use the Router Status page to check the current settings and statistics for your router. It tells you your router name and what firmware version you are using. It gives you information on ip addresses and mac addresses. It tells you about your internet port, lan (local area network) port and your wireless port.

Attached devices: This page shows the IP Address, device name and MAC (Media Access Control) address for each computer attached to the router.

Backup settings: This page allows you to backup, restore and erase the router's current settings

Set password: You use the Set Password page to change the password you use to access the Settings pages.

Router upgrade: You install new versions of the router's software using the Router Upgrade page. It tells you how to do it step by step.

ADVANCED
Port forwarding: Here you can make local computers or servers available to the Internet for different services (for example, FTP or HTTP) so you can play internet games and use internet applications.

Port triggering: This is used to allow applications which would otherwise be blocked by the firewall

WAN setup: Here you can set up a Default DMZ Server and allow the router to respond to a 'ping' from the internet.

LAN IP setup: These are advanced settings that you may configure if you are a network administrator and your network contains multiple routers.

Wireless setup: Here you can enable or disable Enable your Wireless access point and ssid broadcast.

Dynamic DNS: Dynamic DNS (DDNS) Service provides a central public database where information (such as e-mail addresses, host names and IP addresses) can be stored and retrieved.

Static routes: This can give the router information that it cannot learn automatically through other means.

Remote management: Here you can allow a user on the Internet to configure, upgrade and check the status of your router.

UPnP: Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) helps devices, such as Internet appliances and computers, access the network and connect to other devices as needed.

You also get the option of a knowledge base and you can view your documentation.

It has a lot of features that are configured by logging onto the router and by entering the default user and password via your web browser.

I would recommend that you change the password during configuration to prevent any would be hackers from trying to access the router using the default passwords. Wireless networking is easy to setup and you can specify WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy) security or the more secure WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access).

For added protection you can configure a wireless access list and add the computer(s) and laptop(s) that you wish to grant connection to the WGR614. This will only allow the pc or laptop with a mac/hardware address that is on the wireless access list.

The benefit of using a Netgear device is that the help and support provided covers most of the questions and problems you may experience.

If you buy an early version of the router you can easily upgrade the firmware to the latest release.

The only problem i have had with this router was that my internet went of and i tried for three days to get it back on, i found out that the firmware needed upgrading on the router. So always make sure you check for firmware updates on netgears site.

Other than that i have never had a problem.