ZyXEL Prestige 334W Wireless Broadband Router with Firewall

From the Manufacturer
Share your Internet connection among your home or office PCs, all with convenient 802.11g wireless connections and rock-solid security. Designed for home and small office, ZyXEL's Prestige 334W allows all the computers in the household to share the Internet connection with promised protection in communications.

Benefits:

With a powerful CPU and integrated quick-route technology, the Prestige sharing routers are capable of running at a top speed of 100 Mbps and are highly suitable for distributing large files as well as executing demanding LAN activities such as head-to-head games; 5 times faster than the older IEEE 802.11b wireless standard, this IEEE 802.11g WLAN-capable device satisfies all WLAN demands while remaining backward-compatible with slower wireless networking equipment
All-in-one: with router, switch, firewall, and VPN built-in, this all-in-one device meets your home networking gateway needs nicely. You can use it to share Internet connection among multiple computers with ease, and rest assured that your network environment is being safe-guarded anytime
Doubled security: the true firewall features such as Stateful Packet Inspection and Denial of Service (DoS) attack prevention, can solidly protect your internal network from outside intruders or hackers; for wireless LAN environments, the up-to-date wireless security features including WEP encryption and WiFi Protected Access (WPA) will ensure data travels securely through the air
Private and safe care: content filtering prevents undesirable advertising or Web contents from displaying by blocking potentially harmful material; you will be informed of network activities through event logs and e-mail alerts that help you to maintain and monitor the network; Internet access can be further managed by day-of-the-week scheduling; for parents, it is also possible to restrict children's inappropriate Internet access via budget control
Easy installation: the ZyXEL installation wizard makes installation a cinch; with the friendly web-based configurator, you can easily setup and start to enjoy your sharing router in the matter of minutes

Product Description:
mfg by: ZYXEL COMMUNICATIONS, INC. TECHNOLOGY & ELECTRONICS ZYXEL COMMUNICATIONS, INC.>

ZyXEL Prestige 334W Wireless Broadband Router with Firewall

Average customer rating:

Does what it says and very well.

ZyXEL Prestige 334W Wireless Broadband Router with Firewall

Manufacturer: ZYXEL
ProductGroup: CE
Binding: Electronics

Data rate of up to 54 Mbps (IEEE 802.11g-compliant) and backward-compatible with 802.11b
Built-in 4-port 10/100 Mbps switch with auto-MDIX lets you easily share an Internet connection with multiple computers
Content filtering blocks undesirable Web content to protect minors; time-of-day Internet access control
Wireless data securely protected by 128-bits WEP encryption, WPA (802.1x authentication)
Supports up to 256 users and multi-NAT, DHCP server/client, PPPoE, and UPnP; operation-system independent

ASIN: B0002UHULK

Product Description

Share your Internet connection between multiple PCs, all with solid security! Designed for home and small office applications, ZyXEL's Prestige 334W allows your household or office computers to share an Internet connection with secure and protected communication. Better yet, with a built-in Access Point, the Prestige 334W wireless security sharing router allows you to get connected, share resources, and exchange files anywhere in the house or office, minimizing deployment costs, effort and time.

Customer Reviews:

Does what it says and very well........2005-08-08

After only 3 years of service, my Linksys BEFSR81 was starting to cr*p out on me. It having become afflicted with seizures and advanced stages of Alzheimer's, I decided to put it into retirement.

I tried a newer Linksys BEFSX41, and unfortunately the firmware was so unstable I thought that the BEFSR81, by now bumping into walls in the corner, would be a better choice.

I accidently came across the ZyXEL P-334W while in a CompUSA and though, "For $29, even if it's a little slow, I could use it when traveling and staying in hotels."

I don't use the wireless component because I have a WAP upstairs and the ZyXEL sits in the basement.

The P-334W is _amazing_ as a home router! It is much faster than the BEFSR81 with various speedtests clocking in at about 4Mbps over the nearly 3Mbps the Linksys unit had.

The P-334W has support for management via a web interface or telnet, if you like using a character-based menu screen. And if you are a real CLI-nut like me (I use Cisco IOS all day and night so you know I am into the keyboard-PAIN) this unit even has it's own CLI you could use for configuration and management.

If you are used to other vendor's OSs then is does take a bit to get used to the nomenclature within the system but it's not impossible.

It has a firewall which works great and I've set it up to send me morning reports about any unusual activity. This makes remote troubleshooting much easier since forewarned is forearmed ("yes, honey, I know you are having problems and everything should be ok now -- try it again.")

The 2-IPSec VPN tunnels are not too difficult to setup (GOOGLE can help you find various tutorials in addition to ZyXEL's) but I wish I could VPN to the whole inside network instead of just an address on the inside network. This appears to be an industry standard in capability and I guess I should really complain for under $50; LAN VPN capability would run in the hundreds of dollars with any other vendor or even ZyXEL's higher-end boxes.

It also supports DynDNS so I can easily get back to it while I'm on the road.

So, it does everything it said it would. It does it very fast, and it's not terribly hard to make it do those things. Compared to some other products I've seen, this definitely earns the 5 stars.

Now, if only someone would make a consumer/home SSL-tunnel appliance that will let me VPN using TCP port 443 (and not requiring GRE and other protocols that often get firewalled-out) for under $100, I would be a happy camper.

Electronics:

Electronics

Electronics