The device functions EXACTLY the way it it says it does. heh It's is incredibly easy to setup. Anyone can set it up. If you plan on purchasing, I suggest you ignore or not worry about all the reviews indicating complicated setup.

My recommendation is as soon as you get the product, upgrade to the latest firmware before configuring the router.

The Wireless AP: I'm running it with a WinCE device that has a Cisco Aironet 340 PCMCIA card. (People stated this wouldn't work). heh So it really is interoperable with other 802.11b equipment.

Works perfectly. Get excellent signal strength no matter where I am in the house. If you would like to achieve even better signal, there are tips if you do your research.

The Routing: Extremely easy web based configuration/setup. The device also has very good advance features like port forwarding for those of you who would like to run other services like FTP, Mirc, etc.

Excellent Device, excellent price!

I installed the router on a Sunday in 2-3 hours. Twice I punted and called Linksys tech support. On a Sunday, they answered on the first ring both times and nailed my problems (which were not trivial and related to some firewall issues on my machine and configuration requirements of my ISP).

I wish this could be a little easier -- but Linksys keeps working on it. The software and enclosed CD instructions are great and www.linksys.com has a lot of FAQs. But at the end of the day, the guys on the phone will get you through the installation.

If you want to share a DSL line with a mix of wired/wireless and are ready to take the plunge, I'd recommend this without hesitation.

From reading the specs., the Linksys BEFW11S4 offered all I was after : A WAN Ethernet port to connect to the cable modem (albeit via a cross-over UTP cable that Linksys don't supply in the box :-(), 4x100Mb ports to connect to my desktop PCs and of course the inbuilt wireless capability. In addition, the unit can be setup as a DHCP server to allocate IP addresses for your machines, and also supports both PPTP and IPSEC (which is very handy as I can happily create a VPN into systems at work). Wireless support is IEE802.11b inc. WEP.

For me, the setup was a breeze - the device is already allocated a static IP address out of the box (so there is no messing around with BOOTP or additional s/w) and all the configuration is through a relatively nice web interface. Within about 10 minutes I had both the networked and wireless machines working through my cable modem and was happily surfing from other rooms in the house. Wireless strength appears to be good, and I was getting around 70% signal strength on the floor above where the unit was installed (my laptop is running with the Cisco Aironet card - I can't vouch for the Linksys cards...)

For anyone who has had IP networking experience, this unit is easy to use and great value (I was almost going to buy a separate switch, router and Wireless AP until I came across this product). For those without the years of networking knowledge, I'd still recommend getting the product, but would emphasize the need to read the documentation before diving in and getting frustrated...

Either way, a great product.

With a huge grin on my face I opened up the BEFW11S4, read the quick install instructions and promptly placed my BEFSR41 to the side. With the same enthusiasm I opened and installed the WPC11 wireless network card again carefully reading the quick install instructions for Windows 2000. Just to make sure the Access Point was working after I configured everything, as was my old BEFSR41, I had my laptop plugged into the network. Things where going well at this point - I had access to the Internet. Now came the hard part. The first stumbling block was that I was getting an error 31 in device manager (Windows 2000) for the Instant Wireless Network Card (WPC11). Noting that the instructions where sorely lacking for troubleshooting info, I ventured to the linksys web site. Fortunately they have a knowledge base that anybody can reference. It turns out that a .sys file was copied into winnt\system32 instead of winnt\system32\devices. Moving the file correct this error 31 issue. Now the next step was to run the "Wireless Lan Configuration Utility." Clicked on the ICON and I got the message "Can't link to network driver. I looked in the knowledge base - nothing at all. Had to call Tec support. At first I got a busy signal and then after three attempts later, I was able to get through. The tech was helpful but a little annoying as he kept on putting me on hold. In any case it turns out that another .sys file was placed in the wrong place. Problem solved. During this same issue I bumped into another issue. Using the web configuration tool for the BEFW11S4 I wasn't able to change the wireless address number. The error message was something like "14-14 out of range." A firmware update later and a reconfigure, things seemed to be back to normal. At this point I just stuck with the default address of 06 and made sure the WPC11 was set to the same. Now after all of this, things still didn't work - it turns out that the WPC11 needs to be set to "Infrastructure" from the default setting of "Adhoc." All of a sudden things started to work. It was about one in the morning at this point and now I was roaming around the house, the yard, the garage with a wireless laptop. The range seemed to be great and Internet content was flowing to my screen. I did hit some areas in the house where the signal was less than optimal, but nonetheless things worked well until - I tried to VPN in the corporate network. This is after all why I bought this thing. This is where things went down hill; VPN does not work either hardwired or wireless with this product. I called tech support, they're completely aware of it and they provided me with one firmware update after another. It appeared that these firmware updates where buddy drops and that they where handed off to tech support so that the customers can do the testing. Well, needless to say, none of them worked. This is where I decided to throw in the towel. I really wanted this to work and entertained the idea of holding onto this thing until they got it right. After all, the wireless Internet access worked great. But the inability to VPN really got in the way. With that, I ended up returning this unit and buying the WAP11. Now I have the WAP11, the WPC11 wireless card and my trusty old BEFSR41 in service. Life is great and VPN works flawlessly.

So I called Linksys tech support. The person I spoke with listened to what I had to say, but the only suggestion he gave me was for me to put my server on the dmz. That really defeats the point of having a firewall! I asked him if there was anything else I can do. He said that maybe the router I got was defective, and I should get it replaced. So I did.

I just received the new one... I entered all my info in and got it online. But I'm disappointed that it behaves the same. So here's my conclusion:

Good: easy setup, works great for connecting multiple computers to the internet.

Bad: port forwarding just doesn't work correctly.

The on-line help files provided are very poor (some of the wireless card's online help say "Insert detailed description of this tab here."!!!!).

One more thing. I have found that with both this product and the BEFSR41, if you are using port forwarding, the device will occasionally crash if you try to access the external port through the external address from within your home network. From internal machines, you must use the internal address of the machine (avoiding the router completely). From external machines using the external address works fine.

The wired/wireless functions have been working fine except for the following items:

Client/server multiplayer gaming does not function. Games life Half-life, Counterstrike, etc that use UDP packets will freeze the device requiring a poweroff or reset. I'm sure a patch will come out eventually but this is a showstopper for me. I can work around it by using the Linksys just as a hub and putting another router in front, but I wanted to get rid of the other devices.

Range was a little disappointing. Long file transfers from the living room are iffy. Makes playing MPEG4 files onto the digital TV problematic.

I have since gotten rid of the Linksys and bought a SMC 7004AWBR. The gaming works and I get slightly better range.

Have not tried the VPN passthrough options for either device.

Final recommendation. If you are set on a Linksys, wait until they patch it completely. If you can't wait, get an SMC. (note: there is an older SMC model. The newer one has the ports on the back and looks more stylish (rounded), but the lights are less useful/harder to see). If you could use the convenience of a print server, get the SMC. If you have an external modem, you can plug that into the SMC for your connectivity. And the SMC is usually cheaper.

I've had success with the Linksys BEFSR41 cable/dsl router so I figured I'd take the chance with this product. The BEFW11S4 would replace the BEFSR41 in my network, so it was just a matter of powering everything down and then plugging all wires back into my new WAP toy. So far so good. After starting everything back up, I accessed 192.168.1.1 and put in all my info --IP address, sub address, DNS servers, subdomain, gateway info, etc. saved it, and started cruising the net immediately. My Win2K machine was working, so I had to check my Macintosh's internet connectivity --fired that up, and that too was still working. Cool, at least the "wired" part still works.

So I am using my work's Lucent/Orinoco Silver wireless card for the time being, plugged it into my VAIO laptop, made sure it knew I was using DHCP for network settings in Win2K, started my browser and *presto* all was working there too. But I figured I'd wait an hour --all the concerns in other reviews say it works for an hour, then dies. Well, so far (knock on wood), it's still working except for a problem I was having with tunneling into corp network.

I mentioned this to my friend and he immediately mentioned that I probably forgot to enable PPTP (tunneling) in the "advanced" tab at the configure window. Well, after making the changes my friend suggest, just like that, I can now tunnel into the corp network without any problems (knock on wood)..

I am still having problems getting tunneling to work on a PowerBook G3 running OS 9, but the card does see the WAP (I get signal). I'll spend the weekend fiddling with it some more..

Over all, this product does what it says on the box. I would give it 5 stars if the tunneling would work for my Macintosh PowerBook. If you are listening Linksys, please get this working ok?!? I'll be waiting for your firmware upgrade.. :)

Well its been 1 month now and the thing still works great. I stressed this thing with as much traffic as I could, I connected two computers wired directly to the ethernet ports on the back and they transferred data between eachother at an amazing 90Mbps, WOW! At the same time I had my laptop downloading data wirelessly from one of the wired computers, I'm only able to download at a rate of 6Mbps through the wireless card on the laptop but it maintained this data rate across the street from my house into a friends house, and the AP was indoors, again WOW! During this process, the box never froze or locked up.

In conclusion, through the switch ports I was able to transfer data at 90 Mbps and wirelessly at 6Mbps. This is a great product and I would highly recommend it. I believe that all the customer complaints prior to this had to be due to a bad batch of these boxes. I love mine, and they already dropped the price from the time that I bought it a month ago. This thing is so good that my next door neighbor is going to buy one because of what he saw with mine. There is one flaw, or one feature that I haven't been able to get working and that is the port forwarding feature. I wanted to be able to FTP from my work computer to my home computer so I set up the router to forward the FTP port. I was able to ftp to my home computer however the session ended abruptly and I was no longer able to FTP back. I waited a while and the same thing happened again. My conclusion is that the router is not able maintain a port forwarding state. If I try to transfer data, it forwards great but then it abruptly stops. Thats my only negative comment. But other than this the product works great. Highly recommended.