NETGEAR DG834PN RangeMax ADSL Modem Wireless Router - wireless router - DSL - 802.11 Super G, 802.11b/g - desktop

The Netgear DG834PN is the latest version of the DG834 and combines an ADSL modem with a wireless router and 4 port switch. In plain English, this plugs in your phone socket and allows one or more PCs to share the connection via either a wired or wireless link.

The modem part is ADSL2+ ready and should work with even the fastest ISP offerings out there which as at Dec 2006 are around 12mbps in the UK. The setup wizard worked flawlessly and apart from the username and password, worked everything else out for itself and had the DG834PN up and running in a couple of minutes.

As with most similar devices, further configuration is done via a web interface. The wireless section supports 802.11b and 802.11g as well as Netgear's own 802.11 Super G variant offering 108Mbps. The unit features 6 internal Antennas which constantly reconfigure themselves depending on what is connecting to the device and where. Lots of buzzwords like RangeMax Smart MIMO (Multi-In, Multi Out) Technology abound in regard to this area. In theory, this helps cut down on dead spots which plague other wireless devices - those areas where the signal plummets for no obvious reason. It also extends the range quite markedly. I compared this to my old non MIMO access point and found a definite improvement although the manufacturers claim of a 500% improvement in coverage is probably a little optimistic. If you tend to use a laptop and wander from room to room, this is a particularly powerful feature. The top of the unit features a rather funky blue light display which flashes away showing this in action. For those of a more restrained sort, this can be disabled. Security can be enabled as either WEP or WPA-PSK and you can enter a list of MAC addresses that are allowed to access the device for good measure.

The DG834PN also features four 10/100 ports at the back for wired devices allowing a useful mix of wired and wireless. If you need more, you can always connect a separate switch or hub to one of these.

As noted, configuration is done via a web interface. The first thing you should do is change the default password! Once done, you can start twiddling. You can enable blocking of both keywords and specific sites and logging allows you to keep track of various selectable events. A major omission though is the lack of filtering for Java applets, ActiveX and cookies.

The firewall allows you to set up port forwarding and new services can be added as required. These can be enabled at all times or according to a schedule. Personally, I'd go with the former. I can't imagine it makes much sense reducing your security at regular, predictable times. The DG834PN will get the correct time from an internally held list of servers or you can add your own. You can also add an email address to be notified with copies of the logs or a number of other events such as a DoS (Denial of Service) attack or a port scan.

The built in DHCP server can be configured to allocate IP addresses from a limited range and you can enter hard coded ones for specific MAC addresses. This can be particularly useful if you have a particular PC which you want to use as a web server. Once you know the IP address, you can enable port forwarding to send incoming page requests to that PC. It's also useful for remote control of a particular PC on your network.

You can allocate a particular PC to be a DMZ server. This allows you to set a machine to handle any undefined incoming data requests. This is not to be done lightly though as it's a security issue and shouldn't be done without careful planning and continued vigilance to ensure the target PC is up to date and bullet-proofed from various attacks. You can also enable or disable the ability of the unit to respond to external ping requests. The DG834PN can also automatically update a dynamic DNS services as long as it's DynDNS.org. This allows you to cope with a constantly changing WAN IP address your ISP might allocate you, ensuring you can access the system remotely. Speaking of which, the configuration system can be accessed externally although wisely, by default, that is disabled. Finally, you can configure uPnP functionality and any static routing you may need.

As you'd expect, the unit is also firmware upgradeable and settings can be saved to one or more files allowing quick reconfiguration as required.

The DG834PN was very straight forward to set up and configure. The wizard and the web interface were all easy to use. The only real problem we had was that I couldn't get an old Netgear ME101 USB 802.11b wireless adaptor to talk to it. In theory they should be compatible but no amount of cajoling would get them on speaking terms. A visit to the Netgear web site confirmed this as a problem with both the ME101 and a number of newer wireless devices such as the DG834. Which was at fault? Difficult to say.

The ADSL connection stayed solid with no need to reboot the device. The one time I wasn't able to access the web interface on the DG834PN turned out to be the PC I was using, a reboot cleared it.

At around £100 there are certainly cheaper devices on the market. However, the MIMO technology works well, the configuration is comprehensive and you really do get everything you need in one madly flashing device complete with network cable, line filter and stand. If you want a simple all in one solution to your ADSL wireless and wired home networking needs, the DG834PN will do the trick.