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This is integrated with a linksys/cisco router, a linksys AP and a Phantom IBoss firewall filter. I was hoping it would provide coverage to the floor below but that was wishful thinking.
What I wanted was an access point that would cover a large area. This AP is part of a large church network.
The AP holds signal strength and have experienced no drop of service or need to reset. Setup was easy - let me also say I do not use setup software.
I access the html interface and set the parameters I need for my small network. I do get a signal but too weak for most notebooks to access so I will be running more cable and installing another AP.
They all work well together.
I replaced an older WAP for this one. I stayed with Netgear simply because no other vendors provides similar products for the price points.The feature set is not very different from others on the market today, but works very well in my home configuration.This is connected to a separate VLAN on my Cisco ASA5505 and is blocking traffic to other WAP devices connected to it. This works excellent for my two iPhones, PSP, Archos and two laptops which will never need anything more than getting to the internet.
I can't say enough good things about this product. In certain areas of my house, the access point interferes with my Bluetooth earpiece. Setup was a breeze and it seems to cover a whole lot better than my old LinkSys access point did. If you're looking for a easy-to-use and well-built product then look no further.OK, I did think of one thing. It's only in a few areas and if I move aside a few feet the problem goes away so it's not a really big problem. Oh yeah, they sort of overdid it with the blue LED's but, on the positive side, I no longer need a nightlight downstairs.
I needed to use Google to do some of the steps like changing my IP address. I only wish they had put as much thought into the instructions as they did the access point.
well. I needed to buy a new wireless access point because the Link Sys I had.
I've had it a few weeks now and I have not needed to reboot it one time.So, why the four stars. stank.
It would lock up and need to be rebooted at least once per day if not more.I bought this one and got it hooked up in about half an hour or so. In a lot of the steps, they only tell you to do things without actually telling you how to do them.
It also doesn't give you a lot of help on the security set up, but luckily I have done that part before and I just set it to look like my old one.All in all, it is a good little access point, they just need to put some more effort into their instructions.
Of course, neither the NetGear site, nor any other, would come up at that point. An hour-and-a-half into the call, he had me enter a particular IP address into my network settings; I knew that by doing that, instead of using the "automatically obtain an IP address" option, I would no longer be able to access the internet and told him so.
The instructions tell you to hook up the device to your computer, then access a particular IP address at NetGear, which is supposed to step you through the process (other wireless devices I've worked with do basically the same thing).I could not get that website to come up, even though I was definitely connected to the internet (other sites worked fine). So I called netgear's customer support, figuring it was probably a known, common problem related to Vista.
I got hung up very early in the instructions. He was also completely unfamiliar with Vista.
After holding for 15 minutes, during which the same 3 marketing messages repeated on a 30-second cycle, I finally spoke to a support engineer. It was clear this engineer had never worked with this particular product, and that he was handling two calls at once, since he put me on hold multiple times.
He asked me to do it anyway, then try to access the NetGear site from the instructions (note that an hour and a half into the call, this was the first time we had even tried to do the step that I was hung up on). He was about to put me on hold again when I finally ran out of patience and told him I'd just return the device, which I did.So I guess bottom line: If you can get it to work, great; if you need support in order to address any issues, you'd be just as well off asking your cat for advice.
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