Customer Reviews

U.S. Robotics USR8022 Wireless Cable/DSL Router (22 Mbps)

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

 

 

I have been using this router over a month now and it has not given me one single problem in terms of network connection. The wireless range is far much better than the SMC Barricade 7004AWBR. I initially bought the SMC 7004AWBR because it has been out on the market much longer and most people have given thumbs up to it. But it literally keeps locking up on me when I tried to transfer a 120MB file from one computer to another over the wired connection. The U.S. Robotics, however, never gave me one single problem. The setup was fast and painless (like 10 minutes or so) and everything just work.

The only slight issue I have with this router is that the printer server does not behave as I expected. If I turn the printer off, the admin screen will show "Device Printer" error and sometimes I have to reset the router. Also, the router only comes with only 2 wired LAN connection, whereas most other ones come with either 3 or 4.

Okay, I see that I'm swimming against the tide with this review, but I love my USR 8022. I do computer consulting and have installed about 8 of these. All have worked great. It has a excellent range (goes 3 floors away in my house), has a serial port (allowing it to use an external dial-up modem when my cable goes out), has a print server (which I use all the time, so it works for my Brother MFC), and has detachable antennas. IMO, this router is severly underrated. I have used the USR 8022 since it came out and find it to be rock solid. It has port forwarding, a firewall, and all the standard security options.

One word of warning--use v3.1 of the firmware. That is what it ships with it currently. There is an upgrade to 4.2 but it is currently in beta. It works, but causes a printer problem for me, a line at the bottom of the page. So far as I can tell, the firmware cannot be rolled back to an older version.

I have used new 802.11g routers from Dlink, Linksys, and Apple. The USR 8022 is my favorite among them. The only other option would be to try to go all 802.11g to get faster LAN speeds. This would cost you twice as much. You'd need to buy a seperate print server, and you'd loose the ability to attach an external dial-up modem to the router for a back-up connection. Because most people just care about Internet speeds, 802.11b is more than fast enough.

I have been using for 6 months, apparently with more luck than other reviewers.
I network 2 PCs and one laptop. I am using USR 1120 (USB) and USR 2414 (PCI/PCMCIA type II) 11Mbyte/sec adaptors on the other machines. All use Windows 98SE.
I get the full 11Mbyte/sec over distances up to 80', though several walls in the house - one computer located upstairs, the other on the ground floor. Where computers are in the same room I get signal strength and link quality reading of 100%. Across the house I get readings of 60-70%, but good communication/connection speeds which is what counts. I have not tried running at 22Mbyte/sec as the other computers all have 11Mbyte/sec access points - I bought the higher speed router as there was no price difference for an 11Mbyte version.
Maybe the unit works better with other USR Wireless access points than it does with those of 3rd parties- I have not seen the communication speed issues reported by other reviewers.
Installation was easy, once you get used to running the set-up via your web browser. But I would have preferred more comprehensive technical reference manuals than seem to be available from USR. There is little on their website, nor on the CD that comes with the equipment.
I like the serial port feature, which allows the use of a regular of ISDN T/A as backups. I used these with an EICON DIVA T/A no problem. There is an "Extra settings" line on the modem set-up menu that allows you to add "AT" commands for the modem. This is not explained anywhere in the sparse documentation supplied. I had to phone their technical support who answered the phone quickly and were efficient and friendly. But a decent manual would be good.
The broadband internet connection comes via a Westell wirespeed 890 DSL modem supplied by Verizon. No compatibility issues. Just plug and play.
The 2 ethernet ports are useful and work with no problems
The printer port does not support 2 way communications. This is useless from my perspective, so I stopped using it. I find it better to just let other computers share a printer connected directly to one machine on the network. This means the machine connected to the printer must be on to allow printing. Not always convenient.
I am very pleased with the way other devices (scanner, cameras) can be shared.
I mailed my rebate coupon on Jan 02, got the check back April 16.
Overall I find this reasonable value for money. As long as it works with your hardware, it is low cost, easy to use and reliable.

I fiddle-dinked around with the USR8022 unit for hours trying to get it to work with my Cox Cable modem (Motorola Surfboard) with no results. I could get the unit to grab an IP address from my LinkSys router (which I hoped to replace with the 8022 to go wireless), but it refused to get an IP address from the cable modem.

I called Cox, and they explained that the cable modem should self-register any device attached to it (i.e. the MAC address) but it was not working with the USR8022.

Finally, I went into the configuration for the USR8022 and cloned the MAC address of the LinkSys router (which was working with the cable modem) and voila! it worked.

Now the only problem is that the signal strength is TERRIBLE! I am using a laptop with a Symbol 802.11b card and a Toshiba e740 PDA with built-in Wi-Fi. Neither of them will work from more than about 25 feet away from the device, regardless of the antenna position...

I wish I had read the other reviews on this site before buying the unit - the comments about performance are very consistent with what I have experienced. Maybe it would be better with a USR Wireless card in my laptop, but I want to use this network with other devices that have BUILT-IN Wi-Fi antennae (like my PDA and Tablet PC)

The USR8022 router worked in a home network with a laptop using a USR2210 PCMCIA card. However, the range is essentially limited to inside a single room. Moving the laptop outside the room requiring the signal to pass through a single gypsum wall with no insulation slowed down the system but it could still function at lower bandwidths. Moving further away to approximately 25 feet and 2 interior partions resulted in loss of function.

USR email help merely tesponded by recommending I purchase additional antennas or repeaters. No general expectation of performance was provided although I requested whether my performance indicated a possible hardware failure.

I believe anyone expecting to be able to have a system which allows a laptop to be taken out of a single small room which contains the base station router will be disappointed. This is likely to apply to short walls dividers in small bull pen style offices as well.

A further note of caution is that the PCI adapter USR2016 will only function in newer computers meeting the PCI 2.2 specification.

Easy to set up. very well built and no failures yet.

Like others, my box would lose its internet connection every 15 minutes or so. The wireless feature was dropping off at two feet! WEP was making the connection, but I was unable to get any further.

I found that my 3.2GHz phone was causing the wireless distance problems. I figured the power supply may not be supplying enough current, so rigged a connection to my computer's power supply, which provides the necessary 5V. The system now only loses the internet connection about 5 times a day.

I conclude that this device is garbage, but I am stuck with it for now. DON'T BUY ONE!! In fact, (and I would never have said this 5 years ago) don't buy USR products at all.

Funny.. just found out my interent connection was down when I tried to submit this. had to reboot my box yet again. GARBAGE!

This the worst thing I ever had. The instruction is bad. It only has a "quick" start card with no details on how to setup some basic stuffs like configuring the router. The rest of the manual is in the CD.

The signal range is unacceptable!!!I have a "Wireless" router and adapter pair in my room and my PC adapter keep getting poor signal; if not no signal. My room is not big, the two devices are just 15 ft apart. ... Please avoid it at all cost.

i looked for a wireless router with print server port. so far speedstream 2624 and usr8022 failed my test and expectation. both can work in WEP disable mode. if i'm enable the wep 128. these two start drop signal every 15min. they may work with other speedstream or USR only. for sure they are not work with netgear, ipaq and belkin usb wireless router. avoid at all cost

I took this router - tossed it in the garbage after spending an hour on the phone with the "tech" - (the phone call at my expense) after the hour his comment was "well maybe it is defective" - I then went out and purchased a D-link router and junked this one - they wanted me to pay $25 to expidite the replacement - or I could wait two to three weeks while I shipped mine back (at my expense) so that they could fix it - by the way I won't be buying any other US Robotics junk any more