Customer Reviews

Hawking Broadband Booster (HBB1)

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Pros: Works as advertised - makes better use of limited upstream bandwidth.

Cons: A bit black-boxy. Not a whole lot of info out there on how it works - some reviewers test it all wrong.

Despite the lack of solid information, I took the plunge and got one - and I'm glad I did. In my opinion, this is the most innovative home networking product I've seen since the first broadband router came out.

Installation was a breeze - all you do is hook it up. It is the size of a deck of cards with 3 connections (network in, network out and a tiny transformer). Plug it in and it tests your upstream line speed. About 30 seconds later, the 4 lights come on and the thing is up and running.

One thing Hawking did which is really nice, is the last LED goes from green (indicating standard traffic) to bright, super intense blue when the booster does something to optimize the network traffic. Let me tell you, once it is plugged in, you'd be surprised how much that light stays blue.

What this thing does is to prioritize outgoing traffic. Outgoing, you say. Who cares, right? That's what I said until I hooked this thing up. The small, outgoing broadband upstream pipe (usually 128k - 384k) is pretty overloaded with all the Internet-aware applications we're all running these days, and the pipe gets used pretty inefficiently.

The official press states that the booster prioritizes the traffic, so more "time sensitive" requests such as voice-over-IP, gaming and certain UDP packets are sent out first. Bumped to the bottom are the HTTP web page requests, FTP traffic and so forth. This is seems to do as advertised.

What was not advertised (and was quite surprising) is what happened when only ONE machine is on the network. We turned on my wife's computer and she connected to work via a Citrix connection - which is always extremely slow even when noone else is on the network. I shut down all the other machines on the network to ensure it was as slow as normal, then I installed the booster. When she reconnected, the booster's little blue light came on and hardly went out. The remote session became as responsive as working with a non-remote machine! Three days later, she is still happy. Now I'm just guessing, but it seems as if the booster is not only prioritizing, but is actually combining the barrage of small, outgoing packets of data into larger ones.

I didn't go crazy and bog down the network with a ton of artificial activity - plenty of other folks have tried that. I did fire up two more machines with browsers and my XBox Live. They had no effect on the Citrix session and my XBox Live session (voice and gaming) seemed a bit more zippy than normal.

A friend at work did some similar tests on his network and was equally blown away by the results.

Bottom line... I'd whole-heartily recommend this to anyone who:
1. Has more than one machine running on their home network. I'm guessing it would help a lot if you had kids doing any sort of file sharing.
2. Has a single machine performing a lot of Internet-related activity that you want prioritized (e.g. FTP's to the back of the line).
3. Anyone who runs remote connections a lot - I will definitely be recommending this to folks at work that complain about slow Citrix and Remote Desktop connections.

I have seen some improvements, but not the maximum 400% quoted. For example, VoIP quality is maintained, even while uploading or downloading files (before, VoIP would really suffer when sending out large email attachments for example).

The same goes for gaming, latency stays low even while doing file transfers. Don't expect it to do miracles, but especially when you have a network with several computers or you are using several applications at the same time (e.g. VoIP, gaming and file transfers), it will make things run a lot more smoothly than before.

I have a 1.5 mbps DSL connection and use Skype as my primary home phone. When my kids are on the internet viewing websites with a lot of Macroflash video, playing games or downloading music, my VOiP quality simply goes down the tubes. Lags, echoes, choppiness, you name it. I tried adjusting the QoS on my router but that didn't really do much. So I tried looking for something to solve my problem and that's when I stumbled across this excellent product by Hawking Technologies. It pretty much does what routers with built in QoS does, only 100x better. It utilizes a proprietary chip called StreamEngine that is dedicated to streamlining and prioritizing the packets sent by all of your internet applications with a focus on real time applications such as VOiP and Games. The key word here is "sent" because it does nothing to your download stream. The result is a much improved internet experience for the whole family!

I've had the HBB1 for about a month now and it did more than just solve my problem! My VOiP quality improved significantly even with all 3 computers simultaneously connected to the internet. It may not have "boosted" my uplink speed by 400% as advertised but it did what I needed it to do. It's cool when callers comment how clear we sound, especially for a free VOiP service like Skype. I also noticed that my other internet applications run smoother. Set up was fool proof and literally took no more than 5 min to get it up and running. The bright blue LED confirms that the unit is connected correctly and packet management is working. Although no adjustment is necessary right out of the box, the GUI was a nice option to have as it shows your up/down stream speed, modem and router IP addresses and it gives you access to a few other manual adjustments. An average user wouldn't have to mess with it though.

As I opened the box, I was greeted by an impressive packaging that complimented the product very well. Hawking included everything you need for a plug and play set up. Heck, they even included a 3 inch converter cable allowing you to plug in the AC adapter to a regular power strip without blocking the socket next to it. Although its a little tough keeping the unit in place because of the power cord and 2 ethernet cables connected at both ends, the added weight was a nice touch. All things considered, I would highly recommend this product to anyone who has more than 1 computer on their network that engages in a lot of internet activity. Thanks Hawking for a wonderful product!

System set up:
1.5 Mbps connection
Linksys WRT54G Wireless Router
Actiontec DSL Modem
10/100 Network Card
Internet Explorer 7

Easy to install - no drivers.

Basically, works as advertised. I have a far smoother ride on the Web. Most useful when several machineswithin the home network are surfing. Makes streaming video and music a far more reliable pastime.

There's a website for downloading updated firmware, but I found none is necessary.

Due to the odd configuration of our house, our office is located in a remote corner of our finished basement to which the cable company will not run a cable. Thus, we use a Belkin Pre-N Router to get adequate range ("Very Good" signal) to our desktop.

We have cancelled our land telephone line and now use a combination of cell service and Skype. We purchased the HBB1 because we needed to maximize the voice quality on our Skype calls even while we use our networked computers, all of which connect wirelessly. Since we've added the HBB1, our calls have been crystal clear with no delay, even while uploading batches of photographs to the web. And note, we're using "wireless" not only between the desktop and our router, but also with our cordless telephone, the base station of which is plugged into an Actiontec Internet Phone Wizard.

The Belkin Pre-N Router comes with a QoS feature . . . but the Hawking HBB1 QoS is far superior. The best setting is shutting off the router's QoS and going with the HBB1. Really---there's no lag, and our Comcast cable upload capacity is choked around 350 kb/sec (advertised as 384kb/sec). Great product.

I purchased this product to help manage data traffic for my voip calls. I have AT&T Callvantage and had orginally setup the booster to assist in managing traffic when someone is on the phone and someone else is on xbox live or downloading from the web. My original configuration was the HBB1 right after my VDSL modem with my home WRT54G next, and then my AT&T TA behind the 54G router. I can't say that I noticed any improvement in call quality but the booster did show that traffic was being managed. Even still, I had issues on out going voice where my voice would drop off for 5 secs or so. I have a 1mb upload pipe so bandwidth was not the issue.

I then moved my AT&T TA in right behind the booster with my 54G router behind the TA. With this configuration I was seeing a number of dropped calls. In the middle of a conversation the phone would cut off. In trying to fix this issue I removed the booster from the configuration. After that change the dropped calls went away. My call quality is good now as well.

So in the end I can't say that the booster helped but it did cause me some issues so I have it turned off now and will probably put it up on ebay. For me the regular voip recommended setup of TA first and then any home router attached behind it provided the best quality and that configuration was free.

My last issue is with the rebate offered by Hawking. Their site showed they received it in late August and I still have not received the rebate.

I purchased this "broadband booster" for a network of 10 PC's and VOIP to see if some of the lag experienced by some of the network users would decrease. After a few days of testing, this device seems to do what it's supposed to do though I'm sure my network didn't improve by the advertised 400%.

One major gripe concerns the preliminary network check that the broadband booster automatically runs when you open Internet Explorer for the first time. The check seems to take about 3-4 minutes, which may be a problem if you want to start surfing the internet right away. Other than this annoyance, the device is a decent value for the money.

I tried everything to improve my Vonage service, port forwarding, MTU timing, Qos, etc. Nothing worked. If you have an extremely busy home network or several computers and use a P2P or online gaming this device is what worked for me.

This is an Email I sent to Vonage customer svc to advise them of the fix I found.

On my network I have 360kbps of uplink speed but with multiple computers, online gaming and P2P programs the choppy audio was present especially with P2P such as Bittorrent, Azerus. This little $70 gadget works. As a stockholder in your company I would highly recommend that you list this for anyone having audio problems with outgoing voice.

The above item solved all of my audio quality items and seems to have also worked for my friends at work having issues with both Vonage and Skype.

I had a friend that is my 'goto tech person' tell me about the HBB1 by Hawking after complaining about my VOIP Vonage quality of service when anybody in the house was downloading email, playing online games, or downloading from TV shows from iTunes. I was skeptical but the constant annoyance of not having a reliable phoneline had me willing to try anything.

I bought the device on Amazon for less than the $100 bucks I was told it would cost me when I first heard about it and it works awesome. I can download from one computer, somebody playing an online game, AND talk on the phone all at the same time with zero loss in voice quality on the VOIP phone line.

I highly recommend this device to ANYBODY that will be using Voice over IP (VOIP) phone service such as Vonage or any other Internet based phone communications.

I have Vonage phone service with their Linksys WRTP-54G router, which is supposed to implement QoS to prioritize voice traffic, but appears to do so very badly, if at all. I still found that during periods of heavy activity - Mozy online backups, sending large email attachments, etc. - voice quality got very very choppy.

[...]

Before the HBB1, quality was reasonably bad, and the second my PC began the upload test, he immediately complained that he could only hear every fourth syllable I said. After installing the HBB1, we both found that call quality was perfect before, during, and after the speed test. It was amazing.

I then upgraded the firmware from 1.1 to 1.2 and called him back, and call quality wasn't as good, though definitely better than before. I went into the HBB1 configuration screen and manually configured it for my upload speed, and quality came right back up.

I believe if you leave the HBB1 in auto-configuration mode it periodically tests your connection to determine your upload and download speeds, and it seems there was network congestion at the time I upgraded the firmware (speed test showed much lower numbers), so I suspect the new firmware is just fine, but it may have auto-configured my connection speed at a bad time. Configuring manually may have thus solved the problem.

Though all my tests, at its worst it was always better than not having it, and at its best, it was really dramatically better. I haven't even tested with multiple PCs online, but I assume it will handle that situation just as well. Highly recommended.