Netgear is well known in the networking market.  Originally a consumer-oriented subsidiary of Bay Networks, they have since been spun off to become their own company.  Some of the first consumer routers came out of Netgear, and they have been a major player in the home networking scene.  Their latest line of products sports a new sleek look, a major change of the square purple boxes for which they were known.  Personally, I was a fan of the old box, but then again, not everybody wants a network center in their closet ;).  I will admit, however that the new design looks good next to my SB4100 Cable Modem. Alright, enough about the style, let’s take a look at what you get in the box, and some basic features.

PACKAGE CONTENTS

• 4-Port Cable/DSL Gateway Router
• Plastic Foot
• Power Supply
• CD-ROM
• User Guide
• 6 foot CAT-5 Ethernet cable.

Pretty much standard fare, but the Ethernet cable was a nice touch, as not everyone has extra cables lying about

FEATURES

• Enables you to share your broadband Internet connection
• Lets you exchange data quickly between connected PCs and notebooks, share printers and other peripherals, and communicate via e-mail
• Auto-sensing to offer future scalability of 10Base-T networks into 100Base-T Networks
• Uplink port that lets you add computers to your network
• Dedicated bandwidth for each port so you can enjoy an efficient and error-free network
• Plug-and-Play compatibility
• Content Filtering by domain name or keyword
• Dynamic DNS service updating

SPECIFICATIONS

• Network Standards: Static & Dynamic Routing with TCP/IP, VPN pass-through (IPSec, L2TP), NAT, UDP, RIP-1, RIP-2, PPTP, PPPoE, DNS, DHCP (client & server), IEEE802.3i (10BASE-T) Ethernet Specification or IEEE 802.3u (100BASE-TX) Fast Ethernet (auto-sensing), RJ-45.
• Ports: 4- 10/100 Base-T auto-sensing RJ45 ports (LAN), 1- 10Base-T RJ45 port (WAN).
• Indicators: One Bi-Color LED per LAN port (10/100 indicating), 1 WAN activity LED, One Status LED, One Power LED.

Looks like quite a product! On to the setup.

The setup was quite simple.  I connected my cable modem to the WAN port, connected the computers that I wanted to network into the LAN ports.  I plugged in the router and the modem, and all of the computers connected with no problem at 100 Mbps, and my print server connected at 10 Mbps.  I then attempted to access the Internet and was able to with no problem.  Truly plug and play.

Being the speed freak that I am, and having already tweaked out my computer with the SG tweaks, I wanted to see if the router would affect my internet speed, so I ran some speed tests with another popular site’s speed test.  Here are the results.

As you can see, the router decreased the download speed only slightly, yet it increased the upload speed! This is probably due to the unpredictability of the Internet over the time it took me to switch the network cables.  Essentially, this router will not affect speed.

The other statistic I was interested in was the change in latency (ping time). I am not an avid gamer, but I do play online from time to time, and like the rest of you, I have the same hatred for lag.  How does this router do?

Pinging speedguide.net, I can see that the router-induced lag is a measly 1ms! Easily within the margin of error for such a test, I am now satisfied with the router’s performance.  Time to delve into the router’s advanced features.

Using my browser, I connected to the router’s IP address, and was presented with a login screen. I used the login ‘admin’ and the default password, and logged in with no problem.

The first screen that is presented after login is the basic settings screen.  This is where you can setup your internet connection if you were unable to connect when the router was first turned on. This is the page where you can enter a login and password if your ISP requires it, as well as an IP address if you are lucky enough to have a static one.  This is also the place where you can enter a MAC address for cloning.  Essentially, this feature allows the router to mimic the computer that the ISP had set up, if your ISP limits access to one computer.  Cox does not, but I leave my MAC address in there so I can switch the modem directly to my computer without rebooting the modem. Also, note the help to the right of the screen.  These sidebars are provided on every page to guide you through the options on that screen.  A nice feature  indeed.

The next page I’d like to draw your attention to is the content filtering page. One of the unique features about this router is the ability to block content based on domain name or domain keyword.  This was designed to allow parents to filter in hardware rather than software on the local machine.  However, I have found another use for it.  I have entered the domain names of some of the more popular ad sites, and the router will remove ads on the fly.  Also, at the bottom of the settings page, you can choose to bypass the list for one of the PC’s attached to the router, making this feature very flexible.

The router status page is a handy tool for seeing what the router is doing, as well as the WAN IP.  It also lets you know the firmware version.

One of the other neat features of this router is the ability to automatically update a dynamic DNS address, so that you don’t need to know the IP of your computer to connect to it remotely.  A very useful tool for those of you who have ISP’s that frequently change IP addresses.  I get changed about once every 2 or 3 months, so this came in handy.

For those who keep a tight grip on their equipment, or perhaps have the need to manage the router at another location, you can set up the router to allow remote access on the wan port, and even limit the connecting IP, so that not anybody can access it.

Any good router these days should have the ability to port forward, and this one is no exception.  The router will allow up to 20 specific port ranges to be forwarded to LAN machines.  As you can see, I’ve taken full advantage of this feature.

With all these ports open, how secure is the router and the network?  A quick test at GRC’s Port probe gives us the good news: anything not forwarded has been stealthed.

With all these things going for it, it should be a cinch to recommend it.  However, this router had problems that were evidenced by time.  About a week after I purchased it, I could no longer connect to the Internet, even though the cable modem was linked, and my computer’s connection had a link light as well.  I rebooted the router and all was well.  Another week passes and then I was disconnected again.  Reboot the router and all is well.  Around the 4th week, I decide to find some new firmware, and locate it on Netgear’s site.  With the new firmware installed, the router seemed more stable, and I experienced no unexpected disconnects.  However, about a month later, the internet was sluggish at best, so acting on a guess, I reboot the router-and all is well again.  Essentially, the router slows down over time, and requires maintenance reboots.

Unfortunately, that is not the end to my frustration.  I recently purchased a linksys WAP11 to allow my laptop to use wifi to connect to the internet.  I plug in the WAP11, and it goes into a constant reboot cycle.  Already suspecting the router, I try it at school in a network jack, and am able to use it without a problem.  My new AP works everywhere else I try it, except with my netgear router.  My only hope is that there is a new netgear firmware release in the near future to alleviate my problems. Although the Netgear RP614 has an awesome feature set, is highly configurable, fast, and introduces no new lag into the network, it’s stability and compatibility leave something to be desired

PROS

• Full feature set
• Easily configurable
• Fast, and lag-free

CONS

• Instability
• Some incompatibility
  

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