Fake Reviews?

I have a very similar issue - I have two PCs linked to it wirelessly - and both have a bridged connection to VOIP phones which are not exactly under heavy use, but along with up to four VPNs being run I don't think this thing was designed for this kind of abuse. I get dropped from my router regularly, which then vanishes from my view entirely. I'm sure it's great for a laptop with no added complication other than Netflix or some such - but those of us who have heavy IP demands with a lot of random traffic, this is just not the tool to use.
I am thinking in order to be actually effective, this would need a 2nd or 3rd unit to make use of the WDS mode and link the added paraphernalia over ethernet, but again - I'm not sure if I want to drop the $ on this unit or go with something more tried and true that also has WDS capability.

I have to agree that the reviews seem fishy to me as well. I have 4 wireless routers in my house. As a software engineer, and a CCNP certified network engineer this medialink router is the worst, and it's not even the cheapest. I have an asus tomato router, and DIR-645, and stock POS cisco Windstream router, and this medialink router. The Asus is showing it's age, at 8 years old, but still connects regularly and rarely drops. The speed however is not up to par anymore. The windstream router drops about once a week, and the range is very poor. The DIR-645 is a monster, and covers my entire 1 acre of property easily. The medialink router won't even reach from end to end of my 1500 sq foot house. It drops my connection every hour, and even more when I have multiple devices.

Wireshark is my main source of troubleshooting this router as resetting it back to stock has done nothing. The issue is a MASS of dropped packets. Now, if I investigate further there are a few things to note. This medialink router has EXTREMELY poor EM shielding. If I have another router or electronic device within 5 feet of this thing, the range drops dramatically and interference spikes randomly. I suspect something with this "dual-band" is not very effective in dealing with other networks either. I have maybe 5 neighbors all on different channels than I that seem to spike only when my medialink device is active. That's coming from InSSIder by the way. Why is that? I don't get that with any other device. I have a stronge feeling that this medialink device is picking up someone else's signals and processing it as it's own. I have no way to explain that. In the 10 years I've been building networks, I honestly can't do it.

I've tried this router on 3 different machines, and it's had varying affects. My HP laptop works OK, and doesn't drop nearly as frequently as my Acer V3 771g with the Atheros card in it. I was honestly having so much trouble with this router that I blamed the Atheros card for the longest amount of time. I can tell you with certainty. I have no problems connecting to any other wireless device with my Atheros card.

As for the fake reviews, I have to agree with what a lot of the negative people are saying. It's very fishy to me that, given this products popularity on amazon, why hasn't any large reviews been done on this device? CNET for one. PC Magazine for another. It's very hard outside of Amazon to find reviews on this particular product. Newegg doesn't sell it. Tigerdirect doesn't sell it. There's no reviews for it on those 2 massive electronics stores.

Now, I have also noticed a disturbing trend here also. Anyone who posts a negative on this device is almost instantly mobbed with downvotes. Why is that? A lot of people with negative reviews give valid points and concerns and, under most circumstances, are upvoted for being helpful. It's not the case for this product. I'll let you make up your own mind, and you can take my advice or not, just know that I've set up thousands (yes I said thousands) of networks in my life, and I've never had a worse performing device.

Thank you, Mr. Lawless.

I read this entire thread, and I can back up all of B. Lawless's research. I have not used this router, but I must say everything about it is tremendously suspicious. I was going to buy one, but thanks to a user pointing this thread out to me on Slickdeals.net, I will certainly not buy it now. I am thoroughly convinced that all of these people arguing with B. Lawless are doing so because they either work for Medialink or were contracted by Medialink to post fake reviews and defend the product through any means necessary. And based on the most recent posts here, I am definitely not convinced that this product deserves 4.5 stars. I will take my business to a company I trust.

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This company is now all over tech news sites for sending a threatening letter from lawyers demanding a customer take down a negative review for one of their routers.

Just wanted to add that this issue has made it over to one of the larger enthusiast sites around, you just lost a lot of potential business

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1818044

You're company needs to learn how to deal with issues like these, clearly you have no clue how the internet works, threatening to sue someone is not a smart move and who ever suggested it i suggest you fire them before you lose even more business.

sounds like you are expecting a bit much out of a consumer grade device... if performance is that important to you then maybe you should look in to something a bit higher quality... there are lots of options out there... the scenario you've presented could be resolved with a device that does packet shaping so that you can set limits on specific types of traffic and keep them from choking your connection.

For what it's worth: I will never buy a product from this company. Even if the recent reviewer was in the wrong (and I am not saying he is or is not) I feel the way Medialink handled this situation is shameful and unprofessional. I will not do business with this company.

It was suspicious from the beginning, but today it is obvious that all of the resistance to B. Lawless was from Mediabridge. Lots of alias accounts monitored this thread, posted comments dismissing Lawless as a loser skeptic (cheap shots, and not even effective ones at that), and then posted under other aliases to "+1" themselves. The "nutjob" here is Mediabridge - one or two guys in an office suite (no doubt a tiny company of con artists) posting under multiple accounts, singing praises to the heavens of their own company all while hurling insults at a rightfully suspicious customer. Schizophrenic! Throw in a few posts written by the same guys they outsourced their reviews to and you've got a truly entertaining thread that reads as a transparent attempt to keep a thuggish con-operation afloat. Truly truly truly oblivious!

My favorite part is whenever B. Lawless posts, all the fake accounts come back out to call him obsessive! Ha! Not only a hypocritical, lame attempt at distracting any potential customers from BL's accusations, but at this point it's BLATANTLY obvious that Mediabridge is behind these posts. They call BL a conspiracy nut, yet when Mediabridge threatened a negative reviewer with a lawsuit they added: "the fact that your defamatory and libelous 'Product Review' so quickly gathered such an abnormally high number of helpful votes indicates to Mediabridge that there was likely a concerted campaign by you and unknown others to ramp this review up to the top of the list of 'helpful reviews' to be more effective in damaging Mediabridge." Who's the conspiracy nut now?

Also love how Mediabridge support conveniently chimes in when the conversation gets heated, still clueless that their replies read as if they were following along and participating the whole time. Tone never changes from post to post, and the occasional attempts to distinguish these alias-characters from one another are simply sloppy (I L-O-V-E when Ima Consumer suddenly shows her sensitive side and generously offers a sympathetic "I stand corrected"). Not to mention, during lulls in the conversation alias accounts are updated with new reviews for totally random products; this way they are ready at a moment's notice to jump back into the thread without suspicion (obviously that strategy wasn't super effective).

And like so many others, I was duped by Mediabridge too. I one-click-ordered one of their routers based on its 5 star rating (see my VERIFIED one star review, XOXOX). It wasn't until the router died a month later that I realized I had been scammed out of 50 bucks. Like many online shoppers, I'm just too lazy to go through all it takes to ship back an item for return. Amazon made it easy to have a POS router delivered to my door in a single click, and what a shame it is that Mediabridge Support alluded to that very "convenience" in this very thread! They made their money off of customers like ME.

I just hope after posting this some Mediabridge guy googles MY name and then decides to watch Little Edie dance for two hours. That'd be repayment enough.

Thanks Lawless. Stick up for what is right.

Kinda late to the party, but this post is pretty annoying as it was posted by:

Account Manager at Broadband Products, Inc.
Greater Philadelphia Area Telecommunications

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[Deleted by Amazon on May 19, 2014 9:17:58 AM PDT]