Belkin Wireless Pre-N

• Average user rating: 3.0 stars out of 372 reviews
• My rating: 0 stars

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• 3 stars

  Good WiFi, poor router and firewall

  by rcarrjr on April 27, 2005

  Pros: Good WiFi signal strength and speed.

  Cons: Lack of options and configurations for firewall and router. Buggy DoS implementation. Questionable choices with regards to security

  Summary: I chose the Belkin Pre-N WiFi router and firewall based on reading reviews and recommendations. After getting it home I have run into a number of problems with the unit. ...

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  Summary: I chose the Belkin Pre-N WiFi router and firewall based on reading reviews and recommendations. After getting it home I have run into a number of problems with the unit.
  
  1) Wired Setup – Isn’t this supposed to be a wireless unit? Belkin seems to require that you have a computer wired to the unit to set it up. This is a huge hindrance for folks who are upgrading from a previous wireless solution and have become dependant on the fact that there are no wired connections to their router. When I set up my DLink I never had to break out the wires. Simply connect the unit to the modem (ok, one wire), turn on, use a wireless computer to connect to the default SSID, open a browser to the default management page (usually http://192.168.1.1) and viola!
  
  2) Unsecured Status Page - if someone is able to compromise your wireless network, they instantly have access to a wealth of information about your private network. IP addresses, DNS settings, hardware being used, firmware version, W A N IP. It's all information that could possibly be figured out anyway, but Belkin just gives it away...why make it easier for the hackers? Make them work for it.
  
  3) The WiFi/Router/Firewall management pages seem geared toward novices - Which is all good and fine but it has no truly advanced section where power users can fine tune and tweak the settings. There are few configurable options.
  
  4) Lack of fine tuning and configuration – There is a lack of ability to fine tune the firewall for your personal needs. The only options you have are port forwarding/virtual servers, client IP filtering, DMZ, Dynamic DNS and W A N Ping Blocking. They don’t have any ability to handle configurable options for Block W A N Request, Multicast Pass Through, PPTP Pass Through, Filter Internet NAT Redirection, Filter IDENT(port 113), Port Triggering, Dynamic routing (RIP1 or RIP2), or static routing. While the router does have a Universal Plug n Play (UPnP) and IPSec Pass Through options it does not let you configure those options. Nor does it give you any facility to configure your Secure Packet Inspection (S P I) filters.
  
  5) WiFi SSID and channel are on a different page from WiFi security ensuring that if you are administering your router from a wireless connection it will require multiple changes on both the router and your wireless client. For example, save SSID name change on router, then save SSID setting for you pc, and reconnect to the router. Then change WEP key for router, then change WEP key for pc and reconnect to the router. It just makes maintenance that much more difficult. DLink got it right with the DI-624M where settings that need to be in synch on both clients and the router are all on one page and can be changed in one shot.
  
  6) My ISP, Verizon Avenue (vzavenue.com or .net), uses the "Dynamic" connection type as configured on the Belkin router. The connection type has no configurable options like Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU)
  7) the Denial of Service (DoS) protection of the firewall is configured improperly for my ISP (I guess) and causes any downloads greater than 4 or 5 megabytes to stall permanently. It logs the block in the security log. This is a problem Belkin has seen in a few of it's products.
  
  8) The security log is far too sparse giving only the date, event and the IP address. At least give us the port on which the offence occurred and perhaps the type of offence rather than just "Denial of Service" (that’s a pretty broad thing)
  
  9) When on your internal network (behind your firewall) and trying to access your internet facing web server using one of the two or more virtual domains, you will only get the management site for the router. This makes internal testing for websites with virtual domains much more difficult. Linksys handles this in a much better way, by bringing up the management site only when the internal LAN IP address is used. If the external W A N IP (or any domain name registered to it) is used the router treats it as if it is a request coming from outside the firewall and forwards you to the appropriate service. Further, with Belkin, if you want to remotely manage your router/firewall you have no option for what port the management site will use.
  
  When choosing this router understand that while the range and speed of the WiFi are quite good, the firewall and routing services leave a lot to be desired. I would not recommend this unit to a power user.

  Updated
  Point 1) Belkin does infact let you perform a wireless setup if you so desire. Just connect to the bekin ssid and be sure to connect to http://192.168.2.1 for the routers management pages. I'm not sure why this didn't work for me the first time I tried it.
  
  Point 7) After closing inbound ports on the router, the security seemed to stop reporting Denial of Service protections. So the S P I filters may not have been the issue. However the problem remains that I cannot reliably download any files larger than 1 megabyte or so. Multiple retries have sometimes yielded success, but in the end it's was just not reliable.
  
  Blekin tech support has suggested I exchange the product and try a new one.

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  106 out of 113 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 9 stars

  Super range

  by sdvball2002 on March 21, 2005

  Pros: Easy installation, great range, ready for future technology, 802.11N

  Cons: Expensive but you get what you pay for!

  Summary: I have been a loyal Linksys user for more than 5 years now. Been working at the 802.11b space all this time.
  Recently, I moved and needed better range
  ...

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  Summary: I have been a loyal Linksys user for more than 5 years now. Been working at the 802.11b space all this time.
  Recently, I moved and needed better range within my home network. The old router, BEF11S4 didn't cut it at 80 feet. So after trying Linksys' G54 and Netgear's G54, and found both weren't any better with range, I went to Cnet to see what others found best. You guessed it, the Belkin Pre-N. Installation was easy, and range is fantastic. I have tested it to at least 200 feet and have great signal.

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  47 out of 48 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 9 stars

  Great until added a web phone (VoIP)

  by mercadg3 on July 10, 2005

  Pros: Fast (when use a preN laptop card), no drop outs, reliability,Security OK

  Cons: SUPPORT SERVICE !

  Summary: I got it last November ´04 (just when released) I use it with a Belkin PreN Card. Got it first for office & worked better than expected, the IT dept ...

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  Summary: I got it last November ´04 (just when released) I use it with a Belkin PreN Card. Got it first for office & worked better than expected, the IT dept could not believe the benefit/price ratio ( we have CISCO pro G wireless in the entire network) ,then the company upgraded some offices with pre N MIMO tech ) as a company test,then I brought it to home and everyone was happy ( had to get two others lapt top PreN Card) I use a 512 Mbs ADSL. Everything was pure love...until.. I decided to get a Voice Over Internet protocol (VoIP)...evrything crashed! I uninstalled everything,but did not work, then the VoIP company suggested was the protocol in the phone box, I was supposed to try on the IP address in the router and try some other formats )not only ppp), did it. Did not work. The VoIP company send a tech personnel and insisted was the router ( actually the voIP worked great when the router was not connected) then they installed a Linksys G router and everything worked )proving the router problem.I had to restart the router severals times since it got frozen or did not recognize the pre N cards, send mails to Belkin every time,but the online service could not detect the problem.They actually could not solve this.
  The voIP dept send me an expert and when saw the router indicated me what the problem was,solution: connect the ADSL box to the VoIP first )no matter what Belkin says!!!)then route to router via a 2nd (auxiliary( from the box, then from router to the computers.
  Finally ,one laptop (EVO 610N) for a reason we do not get it yet does not accept at first the router security code (even in administrator) so you must type it every time )but works!.
  Now we are back to a happy family
  Advice: if you now a little a bit routers,this is it! buy this one.
  If don´t ,keep the Linksys G or try the other new one with MIMO from Linksys.
  This is working great with us now,but unhappy moments we had.

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  41 out of 42 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 3 stars

  Great router until I discovered

  by lyama on July 25, 2005

  Pros: Good technical support, wireless card works great in hotel, software to install is easy

  Cons: With firewall disabled, dynamic ftp client cannot connect to my ftp server; reset button is hard to find AND difficult to reset.

  Summary: I read all the reviews and bought this about router and card about 2 weeks ago. Router is set up for a desktop and laptop. Card works great in a ...

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  Summary: I read all the reviews and bought this about router and card about 2 weeks ago. Router is set up for a desktop and laptop. Card works great in a hotel, tech support in setting up router and card (for laptop) is fast and knowledgeable UNTIL I had to upload some files using my FTP client to my web server. Even with the router's firewall turned off, I can connect but cannot upload files. Some small files pass, but larger files like an HTML page cannot. Called technical support and was told that I needed to know what port and range I was using in my system to the web server. Searched Belkin's knowledge base and discovered that when using an FTP client, the only work around is to disconnect, turn off router and connect directly through the modem.

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  25 out of 29 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 9 stars

  Superb performing router

  by ksherinian on June 17, 2005

  Pros: Range is incredible, speed is excellent, easy to setup, good security options, solid construction

  Cons: Basic feature set, expensive ($129 after rebate from Microcenter), large size

  Summary: I been running this router since mid-May. This is the third wireless router I have owned, and none of the others even come close to this unit's performance.
  
  To
  
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  Summary: I been running this router since mid-May. This is the third wireless router I have owned, and none of the others even come close to this unit's performance.
  
  To start with, the unit has a well-constructed feel to it. Setup is extremely easy - it comes with a disk that does almost all of work for you, and there is an easy to access web interface for the rest. All told, I had the unit setup with WEP security in about 15 minutes - note; for you IT folks who insist on having the latest security in your home, this unit appears to come with other options, like WPA as well. The reliability of the router has been superb thus far. It has not needed to be rebooted even once - both of the prior routers I owned required frequent reboots, at least until a stable firmware build was released.
  
  As far as speed goes, I use it regularly with three different clients: An old (2000) laptop with a Netgear WG511 PCMCIA card, an Acer TM8104 with Centrino, and my Dell Axim X50. The speed and range on all three are excellent. To quantify that statement, I see a maximum downgrade in performance when using the Centrino laptop of approximately 5% between the farthest point in my house, and a location approximately 5' from the route. I have not conducted credible tests with the other clients, but my qualitative appraisal is that they suffer no appreciable loss in performance when roaming either. Using the Centrino notebook, I appear to get around 18Mbps; note - this is not using Belkin's own Pre-N card, which I understand gets much higher performance. This number compares to approximately 12Mbps that I got with my old 802.11g router.
  
  The range of the unit (even with my non-Pre-n clients) is also excellent. I have used my Acer laptop practically everywhere on my property, and have not found the range limit yet.
  
  After lauding the positives, I suppose I have to list a couple of negatives. First, when the router first sets up the internal network, it assigns addresses in the 192.168.2 subnet - a lot of devices assume a .1 network is setup, and to get one of my network appliances working, I had to reconfigure the network as a .1 net. Also, the router is a bit expensive, but assuming that it is brand new, I am sure the price will come down in the months to come.
  
  All told, however, this is an excellent product, and I would not hesitate to recommend it.

  Updated
  Over the weekend this router crashed. No apparent reason behind it - it happened overnight, and none of the computers in the house were even turned on. I powered the router off, turned it back on, and it started working again immediately.
  
  I was running firmware version 1.00.06 at the time, and noticed that version 1.01.03 was available, so I upgraded it. I did not contact Belkin, so I have comment about their technical support yet, except that the website was easy to get around on.
  
  I have had no problems since, but will update this review if there are any.

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  17 out of 17 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 4 stars

  Its fast but definately has its challenges

  by cablemodemfreak on June 9, 2005

  Pros: It *is* fast

  Cons: You find out how bad it can be when you are googling for support

  Summary: I bought this router and the Pre-N laptop card because of CNET high ranking. When I think about it - I wasn't probably too receptive to negative comments - ...

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  Summary: I bought this router and the Pre-N laptop card because of CNET high ranking. When I think about it - I wasn't probably too receptive to negative comments - I just wanted the best! The CNET review didn't even talk about things I cared about. Let me summarize:
  1) Software install/uninstall doesn't work cleanly. If you are not careful you could have constant connection drops
  2) There are all sorts of firmware versions out there. Don't upgrade just because its a newer version
  3) Belkin routers have a WAN loopback. That means if you are hosting a web page internally (using virtual servers) you won't be able to see it....unless you put a PC on the WAN side - kind of a pain in the butt.
  4) Could be just my situation - but I still get bumped off due to interference. Not often, but enough to question the high cost of this router. I'm curious if the NetGear is better.
  5) Belkin seems suprisingly easy to get ahold of by phone, but they weren't really that effective - I found better answers on the net.
  
  In summary, I guess I took for granted how solid my LinkSys router was for setup. With the Belkin, I never know what's going to happen if I change a setting. I gave up on WPA, encryption, etc. I never could find the magic combination where the planets would align.
  
  Hope this gives a little more info on what I wish I knew before I bought this product.

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  18 out of 21 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 9 stars

  Perfect performance, tough setup

  by scblur22 on May 29, 2005

  Pros: performance, interface, security, range, customer support

  Cons: setup instructions, customer support

  Summary: Fair and balanced review: Bought this at circuit city after much painful research. I have a 3-level townhouse, and wanted to use wireless on all three levels. Unfortunately, the user ...

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  Summary: Fair and balanced review: Bought this at circuit city after much painful research. I have a 3-level townhouse, and wanted to use wireless on all three levels. Unfortunately, the user reviews rarely mention how the unit works in their house/apt. Anyhoo, this thing works perfect. I am picking up networks with the mathcing pre-n card about 10 houses down. The range is awesome, and I notice NO difference in performance from being plugged into the wall. If you want the same performance wirless as wired, get this.
  
  The security is great. It's easy to setup the WEP, but of course since I spent the big bucks I wanted to use the WPA-AES. Once it was setup, awesome. Lots of security options. I was AMAZED to see how many people on my street were NOT using security. I logged on to all their networks and surfed awhile. The WPA is a bit more difficult to setup and Belkin needs to revise their setup instructions just a little bit. It took about 5 minutues to setup the wireless with no security, and another 2 hours to troubleshoot and solve the WPA thing.
  
  Summary: If you are questioning whether or not to get this or a regular 802.11g, think about range and the size of your house/apt. The Pre-N is a complete solution that produces wired performance in a wireless package, but you must weight the price factor.

  Updated
  The security also has a feature that makes your network invisible to others, and I highly recommend changing the IP address of your router from the default 192.168.2.1 to something new. The security is just phenomenal. I had a small glitch during setup and I called customer support: answer after 6 minutes of holding, not bad, but the rep was fairly clueless and told me I might need to get a new router, and that they would replace it for free. I just kept at the problem and fixed it eventually. Good response time, good service, just a little weak on knowledge.

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  11 out of 11 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 8 stars

  Great range, good mixed-mode, weak features

  by astromusic on July 28, 2005

  Pros: Range, and mixed-mode (non Belkin devices) support without sacrificing speed and range

  Cons: While there are routing features, they are weak and superficial

  Summary: Belkin certainly lives up to the hype of the extended range! Even with my laptop built-in 802.11g interface, I get excellent coverage throughout my 2-story house, and out to ...

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  Summary: Belkin certainly lives up to the hype of the extended range! Even with my laptop built-in 802.11g interface, I get excellent coverage throughout my 2-story house, and out to the very far corner of my lot. Heck, the next door neighbor kid was complaining to my kid that he can get very good signal from my router in his bedroom, while he can't get any from the one his dad has in the office room of his house! (Good thing I have 128-bit WEP!).
  
  On the negative side, I feel that the router features are weak and shallow. Yes, you can set up server port pass-throughs, and DMZ but that's about it. That is the one big complaint I have with the CNET review which says "The Belkin Wireless Pre-N Router includes all of the basics and many of the bells and whistles you'll find in competing products." That makes it sound like they are all about the same. But, I know for a fact that the Linksys and even the DLink have more advanced features like IP routing rules. OK, so maybe most consumers don't care, but advanced ones do. Also, even for the features implemented, the implementation is "weak" - here is an example: let's say you have an HTTP server on your LAN, and you set up a Virtual Server to forward Port 80 to it; and, you set up a Dynamic DNS to have a URL. Now, if you type the DNS address OUTSIDE of your home, it will work fine; however, you type that address into a browser in your own home, it will NOT work. Even my 4 year-old Linksys router handled that one fine. There is no way to work around it either, because there is no way to set up routing rules, or a global "hosts" file, or anything. The only way around it is to set up a local hosts file in every computer in the house, hardly an acceptable alternative.
  
  I hope Belkin can wake up and improve the firmware to add router features. And, I hope the CNET editors can give more attention to these kinds of details; after all, we expect them to be geeks for us when evaluating the product!

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  9 out of 9 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 6 stars

  My connection keeps dropping since my neighbor set up another wireless LAN

  by on February 21, 2005

  Pros: Range is pretty nice. I always get at least 4 signal bars, but...

  Cons: …about 3 weeks ago a neighbor set up a wireless LAN, and since them my connection keeps dropping! I finally got tired and fired up an email to belkin support (by the way, the support is unusable on this issue). I'm still waiting for an answer. If you l

  10 out of 12 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 10 stars

  it's freaking awesome

  by mngmikes on June 21, 2005

  Pros: speed, easy setup, distance

  Cons: price was a little high but you pay for what you get i guess

  Summary: i have in my house network 1 xbox, 1 pc, and 2 laptops and have loved this router since the day i got it. no problems with connections and the ...

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  Summary: i have in my house network 1 xbox, 1 pc, and 2 laptops and have loved this router since the day i got it. no problems with connections and the fact i can go in my backyard and still be on my laptops and still be connected at 15mbs is awesome to where i could go to my kitchen on a g router and be lucky to get 1mbs if any at all. i have noticed as well my xbox live never lags like it used to being on a g

  Updated
  just recently talked to my buddy who works on networks and he noticed with how far my connection can go that i should go into the router configuration and put the connection to my mac addresses only... that wep keys even 128 ones can be cracked in 30 seconds. oh and i was getting 15mbs with the connection quality at 62% at almost 2.5 acres i forgot to say that in my original post

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  7 out of 7 users found this user opinion helpful.

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