Netgear WPNT834 RangeMax 240

Pros: Easy to set-up, strong, fast wireless connections

Cons: Horribly buggy firmware

Summary: I just purchased and installed my brand, new WPNT834 router and I'm generally pleased, I suppose, especially considering the trouble I've had with routers, in general (I'll get to that later, if only to satisfy your curiousity).

The WAN performance is good, as least as far as I can tell, as the speed test at broadbandreports.com tells me I'm getting just over 9 megabits per second, which is my ISP's current limit. The LAN performance is good. The wireless performance is excellent even though my speed is limited to 54 megabits per second due to the fact that my laptop, an IBM T-41, has a built-in a/b/g wireless NIC and that's its maximum speed. The feature set is good though, as others have pointed out, there's no access to the Airgo chipset's QoS features.

Here's a list of the problems I've discovered so far:

1) I find that after a few hours of operation, I can no longer access the router's html server; I've tried several browsers and all report that the server is busy. Recycling power to the WPNT834 re-enables the html server for another few hours. While I am not able to access the router's html server, the router continues to function properly.

2) After saving the configuration (I'm not sure if this is the trigger or if it's random), the router's html server appears to lose contact with the router's internal data. All settings appear via the web interface to be the default, which is not possible as the router continues to function normally.

3) After recycling power to the WPNT834 to fix either 1) or 2), the router occasionally loses access to my ISP's DNS servers. The proper server addresses are listed on the connection status screen, but no DNS services are available. I must release and renew the router's lease to my ISP's DHCP server to solve the problem. This problem is intermittent, occurring twice in, perhaps, seven router reboots.

4) I cannot access the router's html server remotely even though I enabled and set-up the Remote Management feature to be as permissive as possible for experimental purposes. If I replace the WPNT834 with my ancient D-Link DI-704, I can access the latter's html interface remotely, so I can only assume that this is yet another firmware problem with the WPNT834.

5) My TiVo, which has a wireless NIC, is assigned an IP address by the WPNT834's DHCP server, but the TiVo doesn't show-up in the router's client list and an entry in the router's persistence table, with the TiVo's NIC's MAC address, is ignored.

I have reported all of these problems to Netgear, via detailed text at their web site. Each problem was answered to the effect that the problems could better be dealt with over the phone. When I called, I found that the level-one technician did not have a good grasp of colloquial American English. He persisted in trying to help me debug wireless speed issues, though I did not report that as a problem and, in fact, am happy with the wireless performance. Eventually, after a fruitless hour on the phone, he queued my problems to level-two. I haven't yet heard from the level-two technician, so I don't know if my problems will be solved, but I sincerely doubt that they will be.

For it is my feeling that none of the home networking companies I've dealt with (D-Link, Linksys, Netgear, Belkin) are set-up to actually solve problems with their badly written firmware, and they all have badly written firmware. Rather, they are geared toward solving problems caused by the end user and/or replacing defective hardware. The result is that if one buys a product with bad firmware, and the manufacturer decides to do nothing, there is no recourse but to return the product for a refund.

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Now, my saga, which, I believe, points out the woeful state of affairs in the entire consumer electronics field. To compete, and to satisfy their marketing departments, manufacturers have loaded on new features at an amazing rate but they rarely if ever seem to test their new products sufficiently. There are some exceptions, but the Netgear WPNT834 is clearly not one of them.

At the dawn of the PC networking era in the 1980s, I installed a number of Netgear hubs and switches, having found them to be designed and built very well, this despite their competitive (to say the least) price. When I first got broadband access at home in the fall of 1999, however, only D-Link had home routers and I got their first four port router (the first of its type on the market, in fact), a D-Link DI-704, in December of that year. It served me well, and still serves my in-laws, this despite its WAN speed limit of 3.5 megabits per second. I replaced it just about two years ago with a D-Link DI-774 wireless router. I paid a premium for that, because it supported WiFi a/b/g, but found numerous fatal flaws in its firmware, this despite the fact that I bought it, apparently, at the end of the product life cycle. After much prodding and many threats, D-Link replaced it with a DI-784.

A week ago Wednesday night, after almost two years of nearly flawless operation, my D-Link DI-784 died. All of its panel lights came on solid and no amount of power recycling or reset button pushing will coax it to function. As it's out of warranty, I ran out the next day to replace it, installing yet another DI-704 I had laying around as a non-wireless fill-in. I bought a Linksys WRT54GX2 at Staples, having read a number of glowing reviews of it. I got it home and discovered that it had two hardware problems. One of the wired RJ-45 ports was dead and the WiFi radio kept turning itself off. I exchanged it the next day for another, which worked well enough for me to discover a myriad of design flaws. 1) While its WAN speed is good, its LAN speed is miserable, much worse than even the old D-Link DI-704. 2) It has no DHCP persistence table. Apparently, Linksys products generally do not, which, if one uses DHCP, renders application routing unreliable as one's servers change IP addresses when rebooted or reconnected. I tried switching all of my systems to static IP addresses, but the Linksys WRT54GX2 assigned them IP addresses, anyhow. These phantom addresses were not reachable, but the fact that they show-up in its client table indicates little or no firmware testing. 3) Unless the WiFi channel was set to 11 (not the default of Auto), I had a lot of trouble connecting my IBM T-41 laptop.

So, a day later, I decided to do more research and settled upon a new D-Link MIMO router, their DI-634M. Comp USA had it on their web site, but when I visited the store they hadn't yet gotten any stock, so I purchased my Netgear WPNT834, despite the much higher price, the decision based solely upon my experience with Netgear products in the early days.

I do hope my trust was not displaced and that Netgear will get their act together and fix these firmware problems ASAP. At least their box is physically solid, unlike the newer products from D-Link and Linksys (though older Linksys products are physically solid as well).