U.S Robotics have always been a make I have considered trustworthy, but this router has shaken my faith in them somewhat. I would probably still buy another product made by them as a 'second chance' but they don't hold the 'great brand' label any more.

I bought this router after deciding that my existing setup (my main machine as the internet gateway, and then between two and five other machines connected through a hub) just wasn't working. For the geeks out there I did consider (and try) some alternatives such as using an old machine as a dedicated gateway with some software such as Smoothwall, but problems with network card drivers quickly ruled that out - I wish I'd stuck with it and found some that worked, because this router is rubbish.

So What Is It Meant To Be?

This router is designed to allow you to share your internet connection across several computers, without the need to have one computer constantly switched on and connected.

It 'works' with both DSL and Cable modems - you plug the modem into one port of the router, and connect your computers to the other ports. It has a backup port for a modem, and also a port to plug in old-fashioned parallel port printers for ease of sharing them.

It allows for 10/100 connections - thats pretty much standard for todays networks, but Gigabit ethernet is out now, which is much faster.

What Is It Really Like?

In reality, this router is a heap of junk. I used it for about 7 months before being forced to give up on it - I would have gotten rid of it much sooner, but my student-style lack of finances meant I simply couldn't afford another routher - so for 7 months I was in connection hell.

Problem One: Security.

Setting it up was easy enough - too easy in fact. At first I was impressed that you could just plug it in to the power, bung the cables on, and then surf away, but it didn't take long for a little doubt to creep in - What about security?

Most routers come with a default setup that includes some strict security options which you then have to tweak to your liking - I guess the idea is 'lock everything down, then people who know what they are doing can open what they need'. Not so with this router - normal things such as web-browsing, IRC chat and file transfers, peer to peer file sharing, and instant messaging work straight away, as do most online games. I only had to forward / open three sets of ports during my time using this router - one for an FTP server, one for a web server, and one for some remote-desktop software.

I guess I can live with it being 'plug in and play' - although I would warn that this means it may not be suitable for families that are concerned about controlling their childrens usage / preventing them from using certain things such as file sharing. It also means it wouldn't be suitable for a small business if you wanted to control your employees usage out of the box.

What really bothered me was the lack of a password in the default configuration. Couple that with the fact that the default setup also allows anyone from any IP address to connect to it and access the configuration page and you have a very insecure setup.

Add to that the fact that this router does not have very detailed logging, has no mention of SPI (Stateful Packet Inspection - a very important firewall feature that intelligently filters internet traffic for better security.), has most security features turned off by default, and has a limit of about 20 port ranges you can open, and you may understand why I think its hardly the most secure router.

Problem 2: The Interface.

I have heard others complain about the interface of some US Robotics routers, and I agree with them. I am an ex sys-admin, I am used to working with network devices, from the lowliest Netgear to fully featured Cisco routers. Technobabble does not scare me, and so called 'user-friendly' terminology usually isn't a problem either.

When using this router the first few times I was lost. Features were all over the place, not logically laid out in the slightest, and the names given for certain things were pure stupidity. Some features were found in two places with slightly different interfaces and slightly different options in each place, yet no reason was given for the differences.

Even towards the end of this routers use I found myself having to just click on every single menu option to find the option that I wanted.

To add to the lack of logic, certain options are marked with a little coloured triangle. Now, its been a while since I've used these menus so please forgive me if I get the colours wrong. Apparently, changes made to an option with a red triangle will not take effect until the router is rebooted. There is no mention of what the blue triangle means, and it is implied, but in my experience not true, that options with no triangle will be changed as soon as you hit apply.

There is a CD that has documentation on it, but the documentation is brief and incomplete. It manages to simultaniously confuse computer novices with too much technobabble and fail to provide enough information to help more advanced users. An impressive feat.

Problem 3: Reliability.

Continuing on from the triangle problem, the one word that comes to mind most strongly regarding this router is *erratic*. Most of the time, *no* changes would not take effect unless the router was rebooted.

Sometimes you could make a normal change (one that should take effect immediately.) and then persuade it to take effect by moving the computer the change was for into the DMZ (so that all traffic could reach it, unfiltered) and then back out. I discovered this quirk by accident when I desperately needed to get a port opened so moved a computer into the DMZ, then was persauded that such a move was stupid, and moved it back. I can only assume that the move back actually happened, although a check of security from 'Shields UP!' (www.grc.com) indicated that my computer was still secure, so I assume its did.

I hated rebooting this router, even to make a setting take effect, because quite often even a soft reboot by pressing the 'reboot' button would cause the router to forget all settings, requring a restore from a backup.

Even worse, sometimes the router would lock up overnight and the only way to recover it was to do a full reset (just removing the power lead then putting it back in wouldn't help in these cases.) once again, bye-bye settings.

I contacted U.S Robotics Support about this and they suggested a Firmware update. I had the latest Firmware already but they said to just install over the top, so I gave that a try. I couldn't actually get the thing to complete a Firmware update though - it would start the update then lock totally. During the time it was locked basic net access was still available, but any special options set up (such as port fowarding) wouldn't work.

Eventually the problem worsened and the lockups became more and more frequent. Support just said that lockups happen from time to time and I should just reboot it. After a while of having to reboot it every day it got worse again - when it finally refused to offer more than 30 mins of stable browsing time I decided to invest in a new router from eBay - a decision I don't regret.

Conclusion.

I hope this little rant hasn't bored you. I didn't realise I could pick out so many flaws in this thing. Scarily enough, when compared to my new router, there isn't anything good about it.

My new one is a Netgear. Including postage it cost me a tiny bit over a tenner and works brilliantly - it has more features, and, more importantly, it works! This old one cost me closer to thirty pounds and had problems from day one.

If U.S. Robotics had said that there was a fault with this one and replaced or repaired it I wouldn't be so scathing, but they didn't - they said that the problems happened 'from time to time' and offered a useless solution. Based on that I can only assume that the thing was working as intended, and call it a piece of junk.