Customer Reviews

NETGEAR WG602 54 Mbps 802.11g Wireless Access Point

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(19)

 

 

I bought this item, because, on the back of the box, it shows the WG602 being used as a bridge to connect to a WGT624 access point. This is extremely misleading, and well, plain wrong, as a couple of other reviewers have pointed out. I was on the phone with extremely unhelpful tech support (that they outsourced to India, I believe), and it took several hours of run-around for the support guy to actually admit that the two products are not compatible (he had to ask someone else). Had he researched this properly in the beginning, hours would have been saved. I was eventually informed (after being told to upgrade firware, change numerous settings, etc.) that the WG602 would only bridge to another WG602. THE BACK OF THE BOX IS WRONG! Don't buy this if you're looking for a bridge that's compatible with any other AP.

I bought a WG602 to extend my wireless network (being established by a WGR614) - after two hours of trying, I gave up and started searching the internet for results. Just then, my friend google *told* me that the WG602 only works with a limited number of other APs (the WG602 and WG302 seem to be the only ones compatible as far as I know..). But that doesn't seem to bother Netgear, they don't give any hint at all, neither on the package, nor on their website. This is a darned cheek! It's almost like having them say "Hey, we're selling cars!" and after buying one of them you discover its disability to drive...

CONCLUSION: If you need a AP, try it, it might actually work - if you need a repeater, just keep your hands of the WG602's!!!!


...words from a frustrated consumer...

I purchased this access point about a month ago for my girlfriend's house. Her existing setup consisted of a Zoom cable modem connected to an SMC Barricade 4 port broadband router/firewall. I went over to her house, plugged an ethernet cable into the router and the acess point, plugged in a wireless PC Card into her laptop, and it was ready to go. All together no more than 15 minutes to get it up and running.

I haven't had a chance to play with the advanced features and security, but from the initial setup, I have to say that I'm impressed, perfect for networking newbies (although I am not, I like the idea that this hardware is easy to use and easy to set up, as all hardware should be).

Performance wise, I couldn't be happier. As a test, I had the AP set up in a room on the second floor of her house and walked outside with the laptop. Roughly 70-80% connection quality around 3/4 of the exterior of the house and roughly 50-60% connection quality on the farthest side of the house, which is not bad IMO considering it's going through several walls. The AP also works flawlessly with both 802.11b and 802.11g clients.
Although when a "b" client connects, all "g" clients are dropped to 11Mbps, this is a behavior that is common to all current generation "g" chipsets. I am a "b" client while all the users in my gf's house are "g" clients, works flawlessly.

Aside from the above, the Netgear WG602 is probably the best looking AP that's out there on the market. It's very stylish and unobtrusive. Sizewise, it's not much larger than a sandwich. It comes with a very practical vertical stand for added convenience. As a side note, Netgear is perhaps the only manufacturer that gets these stands right; it actually holds the AP up stably.

In summary, this is an excellent choice for customers who already have some sort of wired network in place. It's great for those who are less technically inclined as it should pretty much work right out of the box.

OK, I'm gonna have to laugh. Many of the reviews you see around the Web for electronics are laden with complaints about customer service. The reason I have to laugh is that I think this is more a symptom of our self-service society than any given company's customer service. I mean, I've been having issues with an item I ordered from Home Depot, and the hospital where my son is getting treatment has lost his blood samples and then lied about it.

But I digress. This product was a breeze to set up and has been working flawlessly for seven months. I've had several Netgear products in the past, and have never had a problem. I'm using encryption and MAC-filtering and both were easy to configure via the browser interface.

My only complaint is WPA support. This particular AP doesn't support it, and according to Netgear's website, never will. The "V2" will, but not this model. When I first purchased this, I was under the impression that 802.11g and WPA were synonymous. Apparently not. This AP is 802.11g compliant, but does not support WPA. If that is important to you, get the V2.

Purchased the wg 602 to expand my current Netgear wireless system only to find out that as a repeater it will only work with another wg 602. The box that the AP came in shows a typical network setup utilizing a wgr 614 wireless firewall router and the wg 602. Why would netgear clearly show this compatibility when its not the case? Support on this issue was a joke.

As of today, Amazon doesn't specify whether WG602 on this page is WG602 v2 or not. Product specification on this page indicates it is WG602. WG602 hardware isn't software upgradable to WG602 v2 which has WPA and other additional functionalities.

I purchased WG602 more than a year ago. It's been working fine without any trouble. Just like GW511, I was hoping WPA would be added to WG602 through firmware upgrade. However, Netgear released WG602 v2 which doesn't share the same firmware with WG602.

Irecommend you to confirm which version your are purchasing.

I just got this a week ago along with a Netgear WG511 PC Card. It looks really neat. And works great. The setup was a breeze. I just connected the access point to an ethernet switch connected to the router. Installed the PC card and it immediately detected the WLAN. Configuring the access point took a little while because my network's IP range is from 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.1.255. The access point comes with a preset IP address of 192.168.0.227. To access the AP from a PC that is connected to my network over ethernet, I had to change the IP address of that PC to start with 192.168.0. The PC card shows the signal strength as "EXCELLENT", "VERY GOOD", "GOOD", "LOW", "VERY LOW" etc. I did some benchmarking on this. In the same room, the signal strength is shown as "EXCELLENT". I copied 25MB of files from the other PC to my notebook. It took 1 min 7 seconds. Over an ethernet connection between the same two computers, it took only 53 seconds. Then I took the notebook to another room (2 walls) and the signal strength was shown as "VERY GOOD". With 3 walls in between it was still "VERY GOOD". Interesting thing is that I didn't see any noticeable delay in copying the same 25MB files. I took the notebook to upto about 180ft (2 walls in between). The signal strength became "VERY LOW" and it also got disconnected after a while. With more than 2 walls in between, irrespective of the distance, it becomes very unreliable. I keep my access point in the basement in a corner room. I cannot get signal on my ground floor at the opposite corner of the house. I think it is safe to assume that we should get upto 200 ft with no walls in between.

I have the WG602V3 with the current firmware updates appled. This is the first Netgear product that I am truly disappointed in. I need to reboot this unit at least once per day. It completely drops out of sight on the wireless network as well as the wired network. The only way to solve the problem is to remove power and let the unit restart. After reading other reviews, it's not even worth trying to call netgear support, this unit is going back to the store for a refund.

I bought this product to use it as a bridging client in an existing belkin wireless network and it failed to pass any data even though it showed connected to the belkin Access point. According to the Netgear docs this access point can operate as a access point or as a bridging client but what the fail to tell you is that it bridges only in a netgear environment. After spending 20 mins on the phone with Netgear they told me i needed to buy a different model which is non netgear-proprietary or more netgear access points....

How can a company like this be selling proprietary hardware in todays day and age...

Leon McCalla

I just bought the Netgear WG602 about a week ago, and I am very impressed. I also purchased the Netgear 54G Wireless PC Card. Both items work great. All I did was connect the ethernet cord (that comes with the access point) from my existing D-Link wired router and into the Netgear access point. Then I installed the PC Card software on my laptop and rebooted and done. It was up and running in 10 minutes. At about 1 foot I was connected at 100% out in the living room about 30 feet away through one wall it was between 78-86%. Then about 60 feet away through 4-5 walls it was 60%. Even at 60% the connection flew. It was just like I was connected through a wire. I then walked outside my house about 200 feet and was still connected. My dad has a Linksys 802.11b access point and can only go about 40 feet. It seems the 802.11g makes a big difference on signal strength. The access point is very stylish and the stand works great. You need to point the antenna in the right direction to make a stronger connection. Another plus is that you can replace the antenna with a more powerful one if needed. You need to secure the access point soon after you set it up. I went into the setup features of the access point and turned on authentication type to shared key. Then I turned on WEP and used the passcode feature by typing in a word. Then I turned on MAC security and added the PC card's MAC address (which I found in the About tab) to the allowed addresses. Then I rebooted the access point. At this point of course the laptop could not connect because it was not using WEP so I went to the PC card and told it to use WEP security and used the same passcode that I had used on the access point. And then told the Netgear Wireless PC card to re-scan. It found the access point and the entire setup including tight security was done.