This befw11s4 device is the best of both worlds. I used to recommend the Linksys cable router and the wap11 access point but now you can buy a single device to handle both and save.

Concerning the range of home wireless products, I have found that it varies with the layout and design of each home. In some installations, I have been able to move throughout the home and even outside without complete signal loss - although speeds may drop as low as 1 mb before complete signal loss. In other installations, I have had signal loss issues within 20 feet. This is always when moving from room to room and how the signal gets bounced around. I have installed the access point up stairs and been able to receive a full 11 mbs connection downstairs but other times I have had problems between floors.
I have also had large installations that required multiple access points with roaming features. Linksys products are designed to handle these roaming issues.

If you are considering a home wireless solution, examine the Linksys family becuase it should meet most of your requirements. You should also take notice on the amount of product line growth Linksys has experience in the last 2 years. When I first started implementing them, they only had about 3 or 4 products. I feel that Linksys is serious player in this market space and will be on the leading edge of new development.

The technical support folks seems to know everything and walk you through any issues as if they are reading scripts; but you as a customer do NOT have access to such documentation!!

First, I had trouble with getting connected to the Internet; after the tech support guy walked me through 10-15 steps it worked but he refused to repeat the steps for me to write down for future use! Bizzarre!!

Second, I need to use a proxy server in my browser. Linksys won't work at all. Tech Support says Proxies are NOT supported.

Third, my VPN never worked and tech support folks were actually asking me to go to my VPN provider to give me sensitive port and other info to get LinkSys to work.

If you don't use proxies or don't use VPNs, then it is an OK product. Otherwise, there is NO documentation for the customer to use (although the support folks seem to have detailed troubleshooting instructions).

Everything seems to work fine, wireless access is working good. (Router is upstairs, other PC is downstairs).

Direct connection:
1. From the cable modem is around 2.0Mbs (megabit per seconds)

Wireless:
2. From the same floor: 1.8Mbs
3. From the different floor: 1.5Mbs
4. Backyard: 128Kbs
Besides having the accessing to cable modem from anywhere in the house, I also can share information between computers.

I have heard that you can significantly improve the signal by replacing the antennae on the router... Additionally, if I start getting any of the "hanging" problems that I've heard so much about, I'll repost. In conclusion, it suits my needs adequately here in my small beach house but I can't see this setup working in a larger house or between floors in an office building.

From my view, the user interface has some really stupid design flaws. For example, you must supply a password to access the profile (the manual says "use the default of 'admin'", but then after you modify the profile, you cannot save using the same password....after three attempts you receive a "User not Valid" red screen. You must read the web-site documentation to discover that "to save profiles,you must delete the asterisks in the security screen."....How's that for intuitive design??!! Where did they get theses guys?

Save yourself many headaches and buy from someone else.

However, I REALLY was impressed with their technical support during this recent ATT @ HOME fiasco when I couldn't get connected. AT&T said, "not my problem!" I called Linksys, and at no charge, (true, after a 30 minute wait, but everyone was calling them it seems!) fixed my problem and I was up and running.

I would buy Linksys for their excellent tech support alone, to say nothing about their products that work!

I was first introduced to the thought of using a router and DHCP server at home by one of our corporate Computing Security gurus. He told me how amazingly simple it was, but at the time it sounded technical. But when I was able to obtain broadband this year, I needed to both a firewall to protect my data, and a way to easily share my home connection with my company Win2k laptop. The installer suggested Linksys as a product that many people used. So I headed down to the big yellow electronics superstore. As I stood gazing at a whole wall of home networking products I frankly expected the project to be time consuming and difficult. Since I hadn't done any research, I ended up going with the Linksys router with 4 port switch (non-wireless) almost solely based on the installer's comments. (Two days later I realized I could have saved [money] if I would have purchased it online, but that's another story!).

When I got it home, I was truly amazed how simple installation was; I found the instructions very simple, and I found I could simply plug my company (win98 at the time) laptop in, and with NO changes connect to the office via VPN (PPTP). I also later discovered that our corporate IT department had chosen the same Linksys product as the recommended hardware firewall.

Since that time I have helped many people get set up much the same way. I first purchased Linksys wireless router (BEFW11S4) and wireless PCMCIA networking card (WPC11) a couple months for a friend's home network. Due to the layout of her house, it simply was not feasible to string Cat5 wire all over the place. This time, however, I researched various products on the Internet. I was a little skeptical about Linksys after reading quite a few negative comments online, but my personal experience had been good, so I went ahead and purchased the setup anyway.

To be honest, installation of the system took me the better part of a day. Hardware installation was again quite simple; within the first 30 minutes I had easily installed the router to her home pc via cat 5 and loaded the drivers/card in her laptop. I spent the next 4 hours, however, trying to figure out why I the wireless card was connecting to network but I still wasn't getting an Internet connection. This is where some of the comments I had read came back to mind; poor documentation. I had also spent about an hour sorting through the support section of the Linksys website, but no helpo. To make a long story short, it turned out to be something simple but obscure: the "default" network type (Adhoc) setting should have been "Infrastructure" mode. The documentation had not made it really clear which setting to use, but after I made the switch, everything worked great.

Another review I had read indicated poor signal reception/range. I found that in this installation I could use the laptop pretty much anywhere in her 3000 sq ft, 3 story house; some locations were worse than others, but to date, she has had great success. I also easily connected her to the office via PPTP.

I purchased the exact same setup several weeks ago for myself. Armed with knowledge of the proper settings, I had it working in minutes. However, in my 900 sq ft condo, the wireless does not work as well...different construction, interference, I don't know? Overall, however, I like Linksys products and haven't had any problems with quality or customer service. I would highly recommend their products, especially for the telecommuter or family with multiple PCs.

Hope this helps.

HOWEVER. . . the WIRELESS portion of this product has NO documentation nor could I find ANY information about it on the Linksys website. I tried calling the supposed 24 hour 7 day a week technical support only to discover that they were closed. I was quite frustrated to say the least. I sent them an email late on Sunday night; early Monday morning they got back to me with a set of instructions that fixed the problem. I simply wish they would have been available on Saturday or Sunday so I would have been able to fix my problems and frustrations earlier.

Overall, I take off one star for the lack of documentation about the wireless portion of the product and the lack of a place for the consumer to fix their problems. Other than that, the product saved my bacon for the weekend and I am psyched about using it in the future...

First, let me preface this by saying that I've been doing networks for years, and currently work for a wireless company. I know how this stuff works, and I know how it should work.

I spent 2+ hours trying to get 1 host online. After some troubleshooting, I finally lined up the router w/ the host (ie straight line of sight). My connection seemed okay, but the configuration manager said it was flaky. Turns out that if I have so much as a bed sheet between the host & router, my connection drops 32% of the packets. Take the sheet out of the way, and I only have 10 percent packet loss. I tried several channels, and everything I could think of. Nothing worked.

So I called tech support (don't bother). The techs had no idea what could be wrong, and started asking me to do very weird stuff(reconfigure Windows for what was obviously a layer 1 problem).

A word to the wise: Stay the hell away from this one. I'm cutting my losses & snaking some CAT 5. It's just not worth having a connection that (...) out if I look at it funny

5 Stars!

One afternoon, we did have a problem with a few dropped connections. I suspect that the problem was with my cable provider and not with the router, but I upgraded the router bios just to be sure. This took only a few minutes and we haven't had any problems since (I'm still not sure if the problem was the router or my ISP.)

If you are thinking about buying the Linksys router, I say give it a try. If it doesn't work, you can always return it . . . but I'll bet you won't.

A wirelessly connected laptop that is usually operated one story downstairs and two rooms away (about 40 feet straightline) from the router unit usually connects at 2MBPS. While that is not near the 11MBPS advertised maximum, it's still 4x faster than a good dial up connection. (Walls and distance decrease wireless connection speeds.) Hardwired nodes consistently have fast connection speeds.

Setting up the software to get the network running is very complex, and documentation is only fair- at best. I finally had a technician from CompUSA come to my home.