However, even after I was guided through the settings, my streaming audio still failed to work.

WHAT EVER YOU DO, DON'T BUY THIS PRODUCT.

They were no help AT ALL. Becqause my laptop had a Cisco Aironet Client Wireless Adapter and not a Linksys card, they couldn't tell me a thing. Not even where to look for the properties of my card. Granted, I should know this...but they're supposed to be the experts with everything related to their product. They should anticipate an idiot like me calling...but they didn't. Hence, no help and not even a hint on how to get help or to find the right tabs to click. Very frustrating. Eventually, I figured it out and the wireless router works like a champ...not one problem.

I have a fairly large two-story home, and can be upstairs, easily 200 ft. from the router (which is downstairs), with two laptops on the internet, and it still runs at 11 mbps! It's great. The WEP encryption is easy to set-up as well...and while Linksys will warn against slowdown if you use the 128-bit encryption WEP, don't believe the hype. As far as I can tell, there is no slowdown!

In summary, if you're new at wireless network set-up, like I was, be prepared to troubleshoot for a day or two and don't rely on Linksys Tech Support because they're terrible. But once you get it running, you'll wonder why you didn't go wireless sooner.

Rotten, lousy, piece of garbage. The last Linksys product I'll ever own, that's for sure.

You will be able to use the net on your laptop, but take it somewhere where there aren't too many walls between it and the router. I live in a bungalow, and the laptop gets a good signal most anywhere in the house, BUT take it outside and forget it! Each room in my house is only about 12 foot square, so take the lap top more than thirty feet away from the router and it drops the connection.

It's good for the price though.... one more thing. You will need to use an ADSL modem with Ethernet connectivity. I recommend the Eicon Diva 2340 (what I use)

Mark E. Cooper
Warrior Within (ISBN:0-9545122-0-0)

I have had mine for 90 days, and now am unble to return it. Stay wired!!!!

I would not advise this as a purchase.

Using the WPC-11 PCMCIA cards, I have encountered constant connectivity "hangs" over the months, always requiring me to hit the reset switch on the back of the unit to regain a connection to the Internet. Too late to return the unit and 3 wireless cards - stuck with the thing.

Downloaded and successfully installed 3 firmware upgrades to no avail, including 1.39.2, 1.42.7, and 1.44.2.

Tech support, somewhere in India or Pakistan, told me my chip set is damaged, even though the unit has been plugged into APC UPS with filters, etc. for the last 30 months.

When the unit did work, I never got better than 30 foot range. Beyond that the signal would degrade to the point of no connectivity.

Company unwilling to offer a coupon or discount on latest and greatest unit, so I'll move on as you should.

A Dissatisfied Customer

I used the installation wizard which worked flawlessly and I was online in minutes. This router also works well with the MN-510 I have on my other computer. File transfers between the computers are a little faster with this router than with the MS router. Wireless range is very good, appears to be about the same as with the MS Router but perhaps a better quality signal.

... I had no problems in installing the Linksys. If a total novice followed the directions carefully and used the Wizard to install the Linksys router, they won't have any problems either. But if the wizard should fail to run, setting up this router might not be as easy ... .

I like the design of this router better. It lays horizontally like a typical external modem would, and is built heavier ... . ... But the ability to surf, download, upload, etc., without any fear of the router dropping the connection is a real treat.

I helped, it worked, both wireless and wired. It took me a whole Saturday !

I was phoned next day. No Internet connection. Since I am a smarter rat and learned from yesterday, it took me 2 hours to get the connection.

Next day, I called. My shy friends told me, it lost again.

So, situation for the next 7 days was:

..Infinite Loop Begin for this Router
....1. Let that fool think he fixed it
....2. Greater than 1 hour or not
....3. If longer than one hour
........3.1 take a random number
........3.2 lose that damn connection
........3.3 and do not tell those fools how I did it
....4. If less than one hour
........4.1 show them the confidence
........4.2 pretend everything has been under their control
..Loop Back to Beginning

The loop has been repaeted for about 10 times. and, I can feel my friends get shyer and shyer.

I thought I have 15 years' experience on Computer Hardware and Software. Tell you a truth, I never met this kind of product.

Their tech supports let me feel ashame to be an engineer. No wander IT is declining.

PROS:
-Installation with cable or DSL modem is really easy. SEtup in windows XP is almost automatic.
-Regular websurfing for WIRED computers works well.

CONS:
(NOTE: I am using a linksys wireless 802.11b usb enabled, which connection appears to be STRONG (4/5 bars); the router is located on the second floor, but not more than 40 feet away)
- Though connection appears strong navigation is slow and lags. At time it does not even respond.
- If you plan to do online games, forget it. You will lag out constantly. I also reinstalled it several times opening different ports, and nothing worked.
- The lagging occurs even while WIRED to the router, so it is not the wireless feature that has this problem.
- If you are a webmaster, and need to FTP to a server from your house, forget it. This device, (wired or wireless) only occasionally (1 of 10 times) lets you FTP files.

Basically, for the most expensive 802.11b wireless router in the market, this is not worth the price or the trouble.
I find myself bringing the DSL modem downstairs whenever I need to FTP files to the server, and sometimes during websurfing I get so annoyed at the constant 'hesitation' that I bring it down again. Defeating the purpose of having a wireless connection, (while leaving the other people without internet for the time I need to ftp files).

I tried different ports, and none gave me good results.

Any suggestions are welcomed.

I've set up a wireless phone system, wireless headphone system, and a wireless guitar connection system and have to say that the Linksys product provided the easiest, fastest, out of the box setup. I don't think you can go wrong with this product.

Unfortunately, I purchased this router without doing my homework. Now I've realized that a new version of the router made it's debut in late summer 2003, and I happened to get one of the first of these routers (marked on the device and box as the BEFW11S4 Ver.4).

This particular incarnation of the product is junk. The actual device is a cost reduced version of the previous versions, and has less "blinky" lights in the front (if you happen to like those sort of things), as well as a new cost-reduced Broadcom chipset. "Word" is that the bugs in the firmware have NOT been worked out as of recently, and the router is very unstable to say the least. Even after upgrading to the newest firmware (1.45.3), my particular router refuses to renew the DHCP after (usually less than) an hour of being connected. The only solution to this is to unplug/plug the unit to reset it. Extremely annoying.

Other than that, the switch works fine, and I haven't been able to test the wi-fi operation. My final recommendation is either to find one of the older routers (ver.3 or earlier), or pick a different brand. Avoid the ver.4 of this unit like the plague.

AVOID THIS ONE LIKE THE PLAGUE...feel cheated that "1 star" is the lowest grade on this review page, it deserves a "-5 star" for "it couldn't get any worse".

There should be a law against selling stuff this bad. What a complete waste of time and money.

I'm a long time Apple user, but Apple's Airport is so idiot-proof that it doesn't really offer the level of customizability that I needed. Linksys fit the bill perfectly. Here are the features I particularly loved:

MAC cloning. My cable company knows which computer I've got hooked up to the internet, because they keep track of the MAC address of that machine's interface. If I change machines, I have to re-authorize - and if I change it to something that's not an Apple or PC, then it won't serve internet at all. That ruled the Airport out. With MAC cloning, Linksys fools my cable company into thinking that my Apple is still connected directly to the cable modem - I never have to re-authorize.

NAT/Port forwarding: I run a couple services on my box. It can be hard to configure this for access behind a router, but with Linksys it's the work of about a minute. I didn't even need to read the manual - it was just done.

Wireless security: you can easily turn OFF SSID broadcasting, turn ON 128-bit WEP encryption, and easily change your admin password. And you'd better do all those things if you don't want someone stealing your bandwidth.

Remote configuration: If you leave this on, you're leaving yourself open to security problems, but you can turn it on just long enough to let a friend help you configure the router. Makes it easy.

DHCP/Static IP: By playing with the settings you can make DHCP and static IP assignments peacefully coexist on both your wired and wireless LAN.

MAC access list: when enabled, only specific wireless devices with a particular MAC address can connect to your wireless network. An added layer of safety, much appreciated in high density, bandwidth-starved Manhattan.

And after all this configuration was done, the machine acted as a firewall and started logging intrusion attempts - and man, I never knew there were so many hackers out there!

Tip: If you're having trouble, manually reset the router with the physical 'reset' button. I had to do this once before the router would operate properly, but since then, no problems!

I'd buy a Linksys again and I recommend you do so as well!