In recent weeks I seem to have spent time on nothing but setting up Wireless networks, so here goes, another review.

What I was hoping to achieve from this review was something slightly less technical and shorter than my previous reviews. If you do want more detailed information on the more technical aspects of this model then just take a look at my DG834G review - it has pretty much exactly the same features apart from the supposed increase in speed, which as you will see later is far from guaranteed.

Allow multiple machines to access your Broadband connection - You could actually achieve this in another couple of ways. Obviously you could plug any other machine into the supplied MODEM one at a time and this can also be achieved by 'sharing' your Internet connection via Windows 2000 or Windows XP. Not ideal methods by a long way though.

Have firewall protection - A firewall protects you from outside intruders and a software version is included in Windows XP (but no other versions of Windows). You can get third party firewalls however many packaged with anti-virus solutions.

Internet access control - Within the router you can use various filtering options allowing parental control etc. Again you could buy third party solutions or use some of the built in options within Internet Explorer.

I will continue on then by looking at each of the features available and how you would use them. First of all then lets take a look at allowing multiple machines use one Internet connection with this router.

The second and arguably better option would be to use wireless. Again you would also need wireless adaptors on your client machines.
Now lets take a quick look at the Wireless options of this product. One of the greatest confusions when looking at the different models of routers are the different (theoretically fastest) speeds the routers can run at, often signified by standards. The main ones are as follows.

Now the first point is you wont see many routers on sale that only run 802.11b anymore anyway. The second point is the speeds. If you are running Broadband/ASDL you are more than likely getting a maximum download speed of 2Mbps on your line. In other words the bottleneck on most Broadband Internet connections is going to be the connection itself - not the wireless.
However as well as speed each standard claims to give you better wireless coverage. You should also remember that you would also need to use a similar standard of client wireless adaptor (i.e. the one on your desktop PC or laptop) if you want to reach the theoretical maximum speed. So if you used a router with 802.11g and a laptop with 802.11b you would get a maximum speed of 11 Mbps not 54 Mbps. Therefore in theory with this router and a client also running "Super G" you should get a maximum speed of 108 Mbps.
And for me this is where the problem lies with this product. At no point have I actually managed to reach this speed. When using this router with a combination of a Netgear WH511T card in my laptop I have never reached any speed above 54 Mbps. On checking the Netgear support web site it mentions that you can only achieve this speed by using channel 6 on the router (there are 11 channels available). This is not mentioned anywhere else. For me it still didn't work anyway. I am certainly not claiming here that you cannot get this to work - only I could couldn't with equipment that should have worked.

Visually the model is pleasing. It is a reasonable size, white with silver on the front display. The only other complaint I have is again a lack of an on/off switch. The DG834G also suffers from this. To add insult to injury the power cable has now been moved from the far left at the back of the router to the left in from the aerial which makes it harder to get at. The aerial incidentally is slightly smaller than on the DG834G.