Customer Reviews

Netgear FVL328 Cable/DSL ProSafe High-Speed VPN Firewall Router

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

 

 

This is sold at a premium price and should be a premium product. It is NOT; it is high priced junk that should not have gotten past their Quality Department into the market.

The first unit lasted 3 weeks on a network of 4 users with a DSL rated @ 384 Kbps.

The tech service people refused to believe their unit could be at fault and blamed it on the ISP. I replaced this $450 router with a $50 one and all worked fine.

After a 2 hour wait for a Level 2 tech, I was issued a replacement unit. This unit, with serial # 4952, replaced one with a 125 serial # so I assumed the bug had been resolved. This unit died after 35 minutes of use.

I then called Netgear Tech Service people again and waited 2.5 hours for a Level 2 Technician. A recording came on telling me that they were too busy (after I waited for them for 2.5 hours) and told me to call at a later date and disconnected me.

I fired off a short letter to Netgear's Technical VP and CEO - which created a response. They offered to get me a new unit, stress test it, and send it to me. Then someone called and told me that it will take a week to get a suitable unit. I am still waiting - a week after the second unit died.

I had a very similar experience with their FVS 318 in Feb 2003 - where it took 3 units to get one that worked. I gave Netgear a second chance then. At this point however, I will no longer use Netgear equipment. I am an installer and I just cannot afford the labor associated with their faulty products.

As I told Netgear people - Stop rushing product to market before it is ready. The recall expense will hurt badly; the upset customers will go away. They did not heed my advice in Feburary and now, after I gave them an ample second chance, I do not intend to use Netgear routers again.

I strongly recommend you do the same unless you like to replace and replace and replace hoping to get something that works.

It is too bad for Netgear - but some people only learn the hard way. I guess they are one of them.

I wrote the above on Oct 10, 2003. It is now Feb. 22, 2004. Netgear does not have a fix as of today for this problem. They issued me a less costly FVS 318 as an interim fix in late October 2003 with the intent to have the FVL 328 repaired and restored. To date, there is no fix and this has been confirmed by an e mail to me of a few weeks ago.

I regret to take this harsh stance, I fully understand the technical problems in bringing a product to market and the unsuspected probems that can arise. However, the manufacturer is responsible for bringing a dependable product to market and this clearly did not happen in this case. For Netgear's sake, I hope they have overhauled their product introduction procedures or they will not survive with new product launch. For those considering a gateway router, I continue to recommend they not buy this one.

I own this product for about a year now and it has worked OK for 7 users connected and sharing a DSL Connection.

Netgear Support absolutely sucks, especially after 90 days of ownership. All they do is direct you to their premium phone support or to free email support which in turn directs you to their premium phone support. For top notch support go with linksys.

The Dynamic DNS they offer through works for short period and then generates DNS query error, good luck solving that. I would say that the firewall and security settings are a bit better then the $50-$90 dollar units.

To use the router as a VPN server for remote users, you need Netgears Client software. Windows VPN connection does not work, since it requares L2TP or PPTP termination which this router does not support. I think it will pass through those connections in which case you need a seperate VPN server like Windows 2000 Server edition OS.

If you decide to go with this router, please make sure you are ready to configure all the options you want this router to do (Dynamic DNS, VPN, Office to office connection, etc.). because if the support period passes you are on your own. Call the premium support and you have to pay nomater if they fix the problem or not.

I purchased an FVL328 over a year ago and it has been working 24x7 without any problems. This unit is not for the home "computer expert" as you have to have a clue on setting rules etc.

I am using latest V2.06 firmware and have been successful running MS VPN via passthrough mode to terminate in MS ISA2000 firewall and using syslog into secure lan and running 7 Ip addresses on external (DSL) interface.

The unit is good for supporting my 1000/256 dsl connection which
services an SBS2000 server, 2 Win2000 servers and 10 workstations.

Anyone wanting to run a PS2 will find that SONY's security implementation is a pain in the a@#$se so the only way is to use the DMZ option in the WAN interface settings.

The logs clearly indentify type of traffic in/outbound and rules/filtering works well. The FVL328 does suffer if you chose to open large ranges of ports but those trying should have their heads read.

Overall a cost effective unit and for those with a clue

I'm adding this review after making a recommendation on a tech forum. We use FVL328 as a router, DHCP server, and remote access, for 5 Windows clients, and 10 other (embedded) clients, such as printers, fax, phone over IP, Acess Points, scanners, etc.

The colleague on the tech forum pointed out all these terrible reviews. I want to correct the negative remarks posted here that are based on 2003 firmware. The history of the device is that the firmware was TERRIBLE at launch but has been progressively debugged and additional features added. Firmware is now at v2.08. This is the firmware we use in our office LAN/WAN. Even though the device is now EOL and firmware development has been abandoned, v2.08 is rock solid for us.

The device is fast, and operates 24/7 without any hiccups, DSL 6m/1m. It has great network database management tools and security/firewall control settings. Very useful. Port and service forwarding is a bit cumbersome to set up at first, but it works 100%.

The device can crash if there is a network conflict, ie multiple devices with same IP address. This can happen if "segments" of your LAN are brought online with existing IP addresses that conflict with DHCP assigned addresses. What would be nice: polite error message in control panel. What happens: system freeze, requires reboot. Fix: Turn off all devices on the "new LAN segment", then turn on so that they receive a new DHCP assigned IP. Bingo.

Very poor experience. The router worked well until the 30 day return period was over. I have been using three of them and they crash virtually every day. Don't even consider using it anywhere where reliability is critical.

15 users, this unit continously crashes and very poor performance. I'm returning this unit as its not performing as advertised.

"High Speed"? Don't think so. These units are easy to set up and install, and are feature-rich. They might work fine if you only have a few users (like under 10), but I experienced serious performance issues with only 25 users connected. They slow down seriously when you run a decent amount of traffic through them.

I purchased this high speed router for a dedicated satellite internet connection. The unit provides one SSL outbound connection which is almost useless. The unit will not autosense the modem connection speed either 10 or 100 Mbps. The manufactures solution is to put an ethernet hub between the router and the ethernet modem. (what kind of a fix is that) Not what I would consider top of the line from Netgear. I would not recommend or sell one of these to any of my other customers.

I've owned a variety of NetGear units over the last five years, mostly stuff given to me, bought cheaply at sell-outs, and left over from dot-bomb company crashes.

I keep using them because I have four of the same units I didn't pay for, and I only have three connections hooked to them. I gave up dealing w/their support years ago.

Once or twice a year the unit and/or the power supply burns out, and I recycle the unit at a local company. When I run out of units or power supplies, I'll be done with NetGear and will avoid them completely in the future.

The Linksys router I have sitting next to it is four years old and still running without any downtime.