| Linksys BEFW11S4 Wireless-B Cable/DSL Router |
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Model: BEFW11S4
Brand: Linksys
Manufacturer: Linksys
Average Rating: 
(submit your review here)
Total Reviews: 1079
Platforms: Windows NT, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows NT 3.5, Windows NT 4, Windows NT 5, Windows Me, Windows XP, Windows 2000 Server, Windows
Operating system: None
Form factor: External
Hardware platform: PC
Data link protocol: Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, IEEE 802.11b
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| Features: |
Connects to a broadband modem, a 10/100 Ethernet backbone, or wireless network
Long wireless operating range supports 300 feet indoors and 1,500 feet outdoors
Provides roaming, best access-point selection, load balancing, and network traffic filtering
Configurable through your networked PC's Web browser
Can act as a DHCP server for your existing network |
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| Description: |
| The Linksys BEFW11S4 is your all-in-one networking device This wireless router features support for the 802.11b protocol, which lets you wirelessly access your network and the Internet from up to 800 feet (outside), or 300 feet (inside) away |
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| User Reviews (1079 total): |
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Great Product, January 14, 2003
By JohnnyBGood (Atlanta, GA USA)
This is a great product! I was hesitant at first given some of the bad PR but after networking THREE machines together in minutes I could not be more satisfied. No problem with connectivity through numerous walls and doors. Signal strength from my deck is awesome. Even got it to work in the furthest part of my basement (although the signal was kind of weak). On one occasion there appeared to be a signal conflict with a wireless phone (also using 2.4 GHz) but changing channels on the wireless phone (one click) solved the problem. I can't comment on the tech support but the product manuals and web site have lots of info if you get yourself into trouble. Highly, highly recommend this product.
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Best thing since sliced bread, January 13, 2003
By GeorgeJ (Heidelberg, GER)
I had an SMC cable router since we had DSL installed in NOV 2001. Lots of problems the whole time - although manually resetting the SMC always fixed the probs. Just bought the Linksys last week - Wow - this is a fantastic router!. I updated the firmware from APR 2002 to DEC 2002 - but it had worked fine before. I'm in a four-story concrete (German) house, the router is in the stairwell on 2nd floor - and we have great signal strength/link on the three top floors. My Dell notebook, with a Linksys PCMCIA card, works in the basement but signal/link are around 40%. Either wired or wireless - this is a great router.
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Be sure to get the latest firmware, January 10, 2003
By bbethke (Madison, WI)
I give it 5 stars, but only after I downloaded the most recent firmware from the Linksys website (as of the date of this review, December 2002). I bought mine in early January 2003 and it came with a firware dated in April 2002. When I hooked up the components (this router with the Linksys WET11 bridge and WMP11 wireless pci card) I was getting 87% reception and 87% quality and my access point was in the next room only about 20 feet away. The speed was also very slow. Downloads were over 100k/s when wired directly to the router and only about 30k/s when going wireless. After I downloaded the firmware and upgraded it, I was at 100% reception and 100% quality and the download speeds were the same either wireless or wired. Very nice product overall and I no longer have those annoying wires running all over.
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Excellent product, January 10, 2003
By Daniel (New York, New York United States)
I've had this product since July, and it works great. I live in an apartment in New York City, and cutting walls open for ethernet wires is incredibly expensive, and messy. This is an excellent solution if you dont want to wire your house. If you want to stream video from one comp to another, i would recommend the 54G router, because it is compatible with 802.11b as well. But for the price, it is excellent. I have a win 95 and another 98 desktop with pci cards, and an xp laptop with the pcmcia card. They all work great. My only two beefs are,
1. You need an extra ethernet cable to set it up and to enable wireless, as well as the patience of moving it to where it will go, if you dont have a laptop with an ethernet port.
2. I live in a pre-war apartment with plaster-of-paris and cement walls, and that really takes away from the signal. You have to play with the antennas, but eventually, you can get good signal everywhere. I dont think it's the product's fault, it is the walls in my apartment.Overall, get this product if it is for sharing internet.
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great when its up, January 10, 2003
By Dan Trachtman (Rockville, MD USA)
We have this router and 2 of the wireless usb connections too in my home. One is 2 levels below the router in the basement and has no problem. Unfort our network goes down for no understood reason about once every week or two and must be reset before everything goes back online. No idea why. Otherwise, this works very well.
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Excellent Product for My Needs, January 9, 2003
By A. Fatiregun (Dallas, TX)
This review is for the BEFW11S4 (version 2) Wireless Router. I wanted to take advantage of my laptop's wireless capabilities so I did a bit a research online and in various stores on wireless networking. I finally settled on the Linksys router.I have a Toshiba wireless LAN card (Toshiba Satellite) and it works flawlessly with the router. The speed is a little slower compared to a wired connection directly with my cable modem, but to be able to take my notebook all over my home (upstairs and downstairs) while maintaining a broadband internet connection is quite cool. I live in a townhouse so the range this router provides was more than adequate. It took me minutes to set up a wired connection. Version 2 of the router comes with a CD that basically makes set up simple. I did have some difficulty getting my laptop to interact with the wireless access point, but that was due to me not knowing where my laptop's internal antenna was. It's been smooth sailing ever since. I am very happy with my purchase.
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Nice & easy..., January 9, 2003
By bingbucks (Boston, MA)
I've purchased a bunch of these in order to "wire-up" my relatives' houses, therefore when I visit I can just wirelessly latch onto their broadband connections with my laptop... It made for an easy Christmas deciding what to get them...These things have become so easy to set up... Compared to my Netgear NAT'ing router that I got over 3 years ago... The only thing that I had to do with this Linksys box was upgrade the firmware in order to do IPsec over the 802.11b link... Most of the shipping versions that I've come across ship with older code, but it's an easy upgrade, and not enough trouble to change my mind about giving this device 5 stars... And with the generous mail-in rebate, how can ya go wrong?
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Easy Home Networking, January 9, 2003
By Bob Cinek (clifton, nj United States)
Let's face it...sometimes you pick up an item that sounds like a great idea and then get it home, unwrap it and the problems begin. Not so with this router by Linksys. When I needed to share my DSL connection with 3 computers in the house, as well as setting up some shares for data and printers, I chose this product and was glad I did.
I was able to install the router, hook it up to my existing desktop and DSL line as well as connect 2 new additional wireless cards in 2 notebooks in under an hour.
The CD for the router makes installation a snap. It guides you through the whole process step by step. You do not have to be familiar with networking at all to have a home network up in running in no time. It automatically senses all your current configurations and just brings them into the new router.
The wireless install into the notebooks went as simply as any installation of a plug and play device could.
No hitches, no problems. Three computers sharing and accessing the internet within an hour. Not bad! Hats off to Linksys for making home networking so easy anyone can do it!
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Good news, bad news, January 8, 2003
By R. Blake Tobias (Hopewell Junction, NY United States)
The good news: Linksys wireless devices, including this router/AP/switch come up and online easily with the default factory settings. Surprising that things are so simple out of the box. This has been my friends experiences as well as my own first hand. This includes wireless adapter installations on XP/2000/98/95 systems, although if you still have Win 95 you may want to research compatibility for this unit (BEFW11S4 Ver2). Tech Support is available 24x7, a nice plus. If you wonder about interference from 2.4Ghz cordless phones, there seems no significant problems affecting wireless data rate with my Panasonic 2.4Ghz FHSS wireless telephone system. My friend reports no interference problems with his Siemens 2.4G system either. This holds true even when talking and surfing in the same room.
The bad news: Expect some troubles if you are trying to configure the router to something other than default (which you certainly should do) WITHOUT a LAN attached PC. This is inherent in a wireless system, not just Linksys. The router manual is on a CD, but it was for a backlevel version of the router. Unfortunately, even the correct manual is very weak in giving you any good information on the significance of some key config settings, leaving you to wonder what the settings do or what happens if you changed it. Examples - SSID broadcasting, MAC filtering, channel #s, and many more.Summary: what appears to be a good, smooth operating product with 7x24 support, low/no 2.4G interference, easy install, along with poor documentation.
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Easy setup, works fine, January 8, 2003
By zargh (Beaverton, OR United States)
When my neighbor got cable internet, I set up a (2) home network using this wireless router and a Linksys WET-11 wireless bridge. On her end, she has a PC and a Mac connected directly to the router. On my end, I have three PCs connected to a switch, which is connected to the WET-11. The router is set up as the DHCP server for the local network. The distance between the router and the bridge is ~75', with just two exterior walls to pass through. This has been working trouble free since we set it up three weeks ago.Setup of the router and the bridge was simple and relatively painless for me. If you don't have a working knowledge of how simple networks are put together, or have difficulty with technical instructions, you'll probably want to get help. I haven't had any personal experience with Linksys tech support, but reviews haven't been promising. FWIW, the Linksys routers were highly recommended by the cable installation guys ...
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Tastes great, less filling!, January 8, 2003
By Dennis Foster (usa)
The Quick Start Guide could be a tad less obscure, but overall this product does everything the manufacturer claims at an attractive price. Highly recommended.
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Nearly a turnkey wired/wireless home network..., January 7, 2003
By jswizard (Fountain Hills, AZ USA)
Very impressed with the ease of setup & the outstanding performance. In conjunction with the WPC11 Wireless PC Card, I had a Laptop with WIN2000 and a Desktop with WINMe sharing a high speed cable internet connection in about 2 hours -- with no prior networking experience. Built-in security protocols are a bit more complex to fully deploy, but even their default is far better protection than nothing at all (for an always-on internet connection).
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Best networking product on the market!, January 7, 2003
By Hafid Saba (Scottsdale, AZ United States)
I have setup this handy device with RoadRunner, Cox, DirectvDSL (RIP), and Everest Communications....point is, it doesn't really matter who the broadband provider is, unless you purchase a special setup, you'll probably be getting a dynamic IP address provided with your connection. That's all this thing needs to bring internet connectivity across your entire home. Simply do the following:power off the cable/dsl modem
plug in the router (connect from cable/dsl modem to WAN port on router) turn on the modem, let it activate properly
turn on the router, and plug in cable to computers
that's it! if you want to do more, just open up a web browser and go to
192.168.1.1 (password 'admin') and you can access the configuration of the router allowing you to turn off wireless, change DHCP structure, and many more things you won't ever need to touch since it's default is how most people will use it. Great product!!
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Easy to set up., January 5, 2003
By Neil Deshpande (Atlanta, GA)
My room-mate had this up and running in 30 mins along with one PCI card and one PCMCIA card on the network.My only gripe is that it does not have a printer port and print server capability. I dropped it down 1 star for that.
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Excellent Choice, January 4, 2003
By Sean Wright (Arkansas)
I just got this and the pc card for my laptop and it was extremely easy to set up. I would say maybe 10 minutes which most of that time was to reboot Windows 2000. I could walk around with my laptop anywhere in and around outside my house. I absolutely love it!
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easy to set up., January 4, 2003
By Billy J. Gunn (Hot Springs, Arkansas United States)
The best way to get the internet to all our computers. Each of my two children have there on computer. It was so fast to set up all the linksys router and the wireless pc cards.With the (install)disk it set my computer up in minutes. We love it
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Works reliably for web browsing only--FTP has problems, January 3, 2003
By Peter Biddle (Collegeville, PA USA)
This router was pretty easy to set up and works well with browsing the web, HOWEVER:
It has a problem with FTP. I could not use the Win2000 FTP client with this router. It always returns "Connection Refused" errors. If I switch to my LinkSys router, everything works fine. Also, other FTP clients *sometimes* work. I don't like this flakiness. I've tried every reasonable setting imaginable to get FTP to work, but with no luck. HTTP always works fine. I've not tried customer service yet.A feature which is missing from this router is the ability to set static IP address in the DHCP table of the router. My LinkSys router has this feature, which is very handy. The wireless aspect of the router seems to work good. I have my router on the 2nd floor and am able to get a good link from my basement (I'm using a LinkSys PCMCIA wireless card).
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Great, easy, and fast, January 3, 2003
By tshay (Warner Robins, GA USA)
I went from a regular 4 port Linksys router to a wireless one. The setup was nearly the same. Fast and easy. I have a wireless adapter in my laptop and get great speed on the net. Don't notice a difference to speak of. Well worth the money.
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Excellent product at an excellent price!, January 2, 2003
By JTigger (Here, Now.)
OVERALL
Personally, I am *amazed* with the easy of use, performance, and range of features of the Linksys WIFI Router. Installation was as simple as it gets, the range obtained exceeded my expectations, and just about every feature I wanted and then some are all included in this consumer-targeted product.INSTALLATION
Wired-LAN:
1. Opened box.
2. Plugged in power supply, patch cables to cable modem and server.
3. Four seconds later, I was online! Wireless LAN:
1. Configured wireless settings (all found on the "home page" of the router's "web server").
2. Installed wireless NIC on laptop, matching configuration settings.
3. Seconds later, I was online! PERFORMANCE
Truth-be-told, wireless networking is like marriage: it takes two. I've witnessed three wireless nuptuals with this router:
* Linksys Router + Linksys PCMCIA Adaptor: should have signed a pre-nup. The range was much shorter than the 802.11 spec (lost connection at ~100ft in an open-air office). My guess is that the antenna on the Linksys card is of poor quality.
* Linksys Router + Netgear PCMCIA Adaptor: great consistent sex, fantastic communication skills. The range on this card was superb (5.5Mbps at ~1000ft). The signal was consistent, but the antenna is clearly directional (you point the card toward the router).
* Linksys Router + Netgear USB Adaptor: gorgeous looks, low-maintenance, and fantastic conflict resolution. The USB antenna swivels, so you can get the best connection quality without having to sit in a certain position like the PCMCIA cards. The antenna is high quality on this one as well. FEATURE SET
The Linksys WIFI Router comes with a surprising rich set of features including: an easy-to-use web-interface to the router, Universal Plug & Play; DHCP server (dools-out IP address to your private network, you can specify the last starting octet and the total number of IP addresses and lease time in minutes); NAT; traffic logging (sends log record to a computer on your network, where you can view all incoming and outgoing IP traffic); easy 802.11 config (specify SSID, WEP (40/64/128-bit), choose your 802.11 channel, simple key generation using an english passkey, specify transmission rates, configurable per antenna, MAC address filtering(!)); multiple WAN connection types: DHCP client, static IP, PPPoE, RAS, and PPTP; IP and port filters (preventing specific computers on your network from getting out to the I'net); port-forwarding (specific which host on your private network services a specific IP port (necessary when you need to run a publically-addressable server); static and dynamic routing (for both LAN and WAN connections); DMZ-Host feature (puts host on the outside of the firewall); user-configurable MAC address for the WAN interface... I am quite pleased with my Linksys routers (I also have the wired 4-port) and highly recommend them.
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Working from home just became ultimately more productive, January 1, 2003
By unknown
Like a lot of people I have a desktop PC at home for the family and laptop for work. I had an existing AT&T/Comcast cable modem setup with my family PC at home but was not able to utilize it for my work laptop. Before, I was required to use the 56k dial-up modem on my laptop to connect to my company's intranet (slow, and tied up my one phone line). With this product (along with the wireless PC card for my laptop) my problems have been easily solved. I now can slip in the wireless PC card into my work laptop when I'm at home and effortlessly surf the net (privately) or work from my easy chair using my company's Virtual Private Network (VPN). I have my existing PC connected to one of the four Ethernet ports.When I do work from home now I'm not tying up the phone line when downloading email. I can now do conference calls from home and receive those last minute presentations that are sent 2 minutes before the meeting starts (this was always my biggest issue before), use NetMeeting, etc. The performance of my work environment through the WLAN is virtually the same as if I was sitting at my desk in the office. Installation was very easy with the Quick start guide going though an easy step-by-step process. I have Windows 98 on my family PC and Windows XP on my laptop and had no installation issues with either one. I get good signal strength throughout my 2-story 3000 sq. ft. house with the transmitter on the second floor (Most of the time I get 3 or 4 bars out of 5 on the strength meter, working from the lower floor. Linksys now makes a signal strengthener to go with this product if that is an issue for you. One helpful installation hint: After installing and getting everything functional be sure to turn the Wireless Encryption Protocol (WEP) feature on. This will make your Wireless network secure so that your neighbors can't access it w/o the encryption key that you generate. This product features 64-bit and 128-bit wireless encryption. The .pdf manual has easy to follow instructions for how to set this up on the WAP and for your Wireless PC card.
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