Product Description

Package Contents: Wireless-N Broadband Router, CD-ROM with Norton Internet Security, User Guide, Ethernet network cable, power adapter.

The Linksys WRT300N Wireless-N Broadband Router is three devices in one box. It's a Wireless Access Point, letting you connect to a network without wires. It's also a full-duplex 10/100 switch connecting your wired-Ethernet devices together. Finally, its router function ties it all together, allowing your network to share a high-speed Internet connection. The advanced MIMO technology uses multiple radios to create a robust signal that travels up to 4 times faster & reduces dead spots. It's up to 12 times faster than Wireless-G, but works great with both Wireless-G and -B devices. Wireless signals are protected by up to 256-bit encryption, and keeps your network protected with a powerful SPI firewall. Now you can share high-speed Internet, files, printers, multi-player games and even media-intensive applications at faster speeds, without the hassle of stringing messy wires! Reset button Up to 256-bit wireless encryption Complies with IEEE draft 802.11n standards Blazing fast wireless speed for high-bandwidth applications, such as audio streaming and file streaming 256-bit encryption for unsurpassed wireless security Expanded wireless coverage, up to 4x the range of 802.11g products All LAN ports support auto-crossover (MDI/MDI-X) -- no need for crossover cables Device can be placed vertically or horizontally System Requirements - PC with Windows 2000 & XP, network adapter, CD-ROM drive, Internet Explorer 5.5 or Firefox 1.0 Unit Dimensions - 7.40 x 1.57 x 6.93 (188 x 40 x 176 mm) Unit Weight - 18.60 oz. (0.527 Kg)

Product Details

• Brand: Linksys
• Model: WRT300N
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 40.56" h x 115.56" w x 135.00" l, 4.00 pounds

Features

• LAN Ports - 4
• WAN Ports - N/A
• RS-232 Port - N/A

From the manufacturer
The Wireless-N Broadband Router is really three devices in one box. First, there's the Wireless Access Point, which lets you connect to the network without wires. There's also a built-in 4-port full-duplex 10/100 Switch to connect your wired-Ethernet devices together. Finally, the Router function ties it all together and lets your whole network share a high-speed cable or DSL Internet connection.

The Access Point built into the Router uses the very latest wireless networking technology, Wireless-N (draft 802.11n). By overlaying the signals of multiple radios, Wireless-N's "Multiple In, Multiple Out" (MIMO) technology multiplies the effective data rate. Unlike ordinary wireless networking technologies that are confused by signal reflections, MIMO actually uses these reflections to increase the range and reduce "dead spots" in the wireless coverage area. The robust signal travels farther, maintaining wireless connections up to 4 times farther than standard Wireless-G.

With Wireless-N, the farther away you are, the more speed advantage you get. It works great with standard Wireless-G and -B equipment, but when both ends of the wireless link are Wireless-N, the router can increase the throughput even more by using twice as much radio band, yielding speeds up to 12 times as fast as standard Wireless-G. But unlike other speed-enhanced technologies, Wireless-N can dynamically enable this double-speed mode for Wireless-N devices, while still connecting to other wireless devices at their respective fastest speeds. In congested areas, the "good neighbor" mode ensures that the Router checks for other wireless devices in the area before gobbling up the radio band.

To help protect your data and privacy, the Router can encode all wireless transmissions with industrial-strength 256-bit encryption. It can serve as your network's DHCP Server, has a powerful SPI firewall to protect your PCs against intruders and most known Internet attacks, and supports VPN pass-through. Configuration is a snap with the web browser-based configuration utility.

The incredible speed of Wireless-N makes it ideal for media-centric applications like streaming video, gaming, and Voice over IP telephony, and gives you plenty of headroom to run multiple media-intense data streams through the network at the same time, with no degradation in performance. With the Linksys Wireless-N Broadband Router at the center of your home or office network, you can share a high-speed Internet connection, files, printers, and multi-player games, and run media-intensive applications at faster than 10/100 wired network speeds, without the hassle of stringing wires!

Customer Reviews

Cumbersome Linksys Router
My Linksys router ultimately functions as advertised, but its "Quick Install" disc and accompanying instructions are ludicrous. Although I am quite able with electonics, several attempts at installing my Linksys router using its "Quick Install" instructions, as supplemented by "Help" instructions contained in its "Linksys Advisor" and the Linksys Web site, wasted many hours. Knowing the process would waste even more time (this happened with a prior version of Linksys router), I finally resorted to Linksys "Tech Support," where I first dealt with a barely literate woman somewhere in India who labored through spelling my name, understanding the serial number of my product, etc. and generally taking a great deal of time before disconnecting me without providing a case number so that on my next call (apparently Linksys operators are not allowed to make calls even though I had been previously asked for my phone number), there was no case number to supply the next operator. So we again struggled through "can you spell your name (yes, I've been able to do that since age 3), etc. and then taking a very long time to help me initiate operation of my Linksys router, something that was advertised as being short and simple.

Worse performance than my wireless-G router
I bought this router because my new laptop had wireless-N technology. However, it took forever to get the router to work with my laptop with encryption enabled. Then, when I finally got it work, the signal strength/range was no better than my G router. The router's speed was worst of all. Compared side-by-side the download and upload speeds for my G router were consistently better by a considerable margin. I tested the speed using multiple websites and the wireless-G router was always better. None of the suggestions from the Linksys website helped improve the speed. I don't even use it anymore. I just use my G router for everything, although I haven't had the heart to disconnect it altogether because I paid $70 for it. I'm secretly hoping that Linksys releases a miraculous firmware upgrade that will fix it.

Works, and is fast... but it's unreliable.
I didn't have the problem others seem to have had with this router. I had it up and running (both wired and wirelessly) in only a few minutes using their web controls. And it's fast. My problem is with its wireless reliability. If I do large file copies or downloads over the wireless link, the router will suddenly stop speaking to my laptop. My laptop can *see* the router, but the router won't allow me to connect. Powercycling the router fixes the problem immediately, or I can wait an hour or so and things usually work again just fine. The same thing happens with my wife's laptop.

Another problem I've found is that if you disable SSID broadcasts, your laptop won't find it. For security reasons, I always disable this. Our laptops have never had an issue finding previous Linksys routers we've used when the broadcasts are off, but for some reason this particular router doesn't do well. I've played with the beacon settings and timings to no avail. As with all Linksys products (and almost all tech products in general these days), calling or emailing support gets you nowhere.

Linksys hasn't released an upgrade for my version of the router (1.1) since I bought it. You'd think they'd have a bugfix release, but no. There's no support from them at all. If you're using it for simple general home use (and not planning on any heavy duty data transfers), this router will probably be OK. But if you want a reliable router that doesn't drop the ball when you use it, look elsewhere.