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I bought this thinking that it would allow me to do a few things that my old G wireless router could not:
1) Add VPN capability. I realized that IPSEC software would be necessary, which is cool since I have several versions available courtesy of some of my clients.
2) Upgrade to wireless N. The thought was that I would do some streaming from my media server to media player and streaming to my netflix box wirelessly. Wireless G connections were both a bit slow for HD streaming and are less reliable than Wireless N.
3) Get gigabit capability for my internal network, which matters a lot for working with large files across the network.
Other than #3, none of these was accomplished right out of the box.
In addition there was a major problem with wireless connectivity. I found that if there were no hard-wired DHCP clients connected, it would not give a DHCP address to any wireless client. Since my hardwired boxes all use static IPs, that kind of sucked.
After doing some research on the various Linksys/Cisco sites, I found that there was a firmware upgrade. I upgraded to 1.1.13. This addressed the wireless issue as well as the issues in configuring the VPN.
Nonetheless there are still problems.
It has turned out not to be great for wireless streaming because in heavy use it seems to overheat and the wireless just shuts down. I was able to fix this problem somewhat by wall-mounting it vertically with the ventilation holes oriented up and down, but now that things have warmed up here, I'm having problems again. This box is just not sufficiently ventilated for heavy use. I've decided to just run a CAT6 cable and install a small switch near my home theater stack to handle streaming over wires.
However, even for more casual use, wireless is somewhat less than perfect. Internet (DNS) connections to the wireless connections seem to get dropped periodically. I've been unable to figure out why. I'm able to get to my internal network fairly consistently, but there seem to be issues with DNS dropping off. Disabling IPv6 (which I don't need) on the clients seems to help, but hasn't completely resolved the issue. My old Linksys G router never had any of these issues.
Finally, this router really seems to slow things down a lot compared to a direct connection. Some slowing is normal, but this is in the range of 4mbps, and in my experience far more than should be experienced by a "business class" device.
Finally, there's the problem with the manufacturer. This product was originally labeled "Linksys" then "Linksys by Cisco" and now "Cisco Small Business Series." While the desire to move this type of product to the Cisco brand name is understandable, it seems to have been executed poorly. Do a Google search for info and you'll still be directed to some resources on the Linksys site. Support on the Cisco site is confusing and apparently not well maintained. Nobody anywhere seems to be really experienced at dealing with these routers or able to answer questions.
In the end, this router fills a space that Cisco seems not to be able to handle: It is more capable than the consumer-level stuff that they sell under the Linksys brand, but is sold to be used by people who are mostly not serious IT professionals and capable of detailed troubleshooting. It's too complex for the Linksys people, but not complex enough to be the kind of money-maker that Cisco can usually charge an arm and a leg for supporting. So it's fallen between the cracks, with poorly done and poorly tested firmware, lots of known issues that never get resolved and resulting poor performance.
This router probably works for you if you don't need many of the advanced features or can deal with the wireless cutting out from time to time. But if that's the case you can save yourself a lot of money by just getting a consumer model from any of the major manufacturers, including Linksys. It does not work well if you need a really capable business-class device.
Netgear seem to be far more interested in the SMB market. They have their issues too and their competing product is more expensive, but if you need a bulletproof SMB product with decent online support and information, that seems to be the way to go at this time.
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