router

Apple's latest refresh to its AirPort Extreme Base Station does little to set it apart from the previous model from back in December 2009. It borrows the same unobtrusive design, with an all-white housing and internal antennas that visually complements other Apple products, but if you value price and performance over simple aesthetics, we recommend the Editors' Choice-winning Asus RT-N56U router instead.

The new Apple AirPort Extreme Base Station offers faster networking performance than the older model, with few changes otherwise. The two share a physical resemblance, and they both feature the same simple installation, true dual-band connectivity, guest … Read more

Well, I was hoping to round out this week of freebies with one last $0 deal, but nothing really jumped out. I mean, hey, there's always OpenOffice.org, the awesome free alternative to Microsoft Office, right?

Today's official deal isn't free, but it's downright dirt-cheap. Newegg has the Asus RT-N10+ 802.11b/g/n wireless router for $14.99 shipped. That's the price after redeeming a $10 mail-in rebate (PDF).

Update: Sorry folks, it's already sold out. But OpenOffice isn't! And neither is LibreOffice, which several commenters have noted is even better.

I … Read more

Generally, getting a VPN for your business that allows remote users to access the local network via the Internet as though they were physically at the office means you'd need a real server or a relatively expensive VPN router. It doesn't have to be that way anymore with the RV110W Wireless-N VPN Firewall that Cisco announced today.

This is a router designed specifically for small businesses of five employees or fewer. Its built-in PPTP VPN server is limited to supporting up to five concurrent remote users. The good news is that the router is very easy to use … Read more

The N750 Wireless Dual-Band WNDR4000 is the first true dual-band router from Netgear that offers the new 450Mbps speed on the 5GHz band. This means it competes directly with Cisco's Linksys E4200, which was released a while ago.

Apart from the guest networking feature, which lets you create separate Internet-only wireless networks for guests, the Netgear seems to trail behind the E4200 on almost all other counts. It's in no way a bad router, however.

As a matter of fact, it topped the chart on the 2.4GHz band in our close-range throughput test, registering a sustained real-world … Read more

Awhile ago, Cisco refreshed its E series of routers and switches. Today, D-Link introduced its own by announcing its Amplifi family of high-performance home networking solutions.

The company says the new products are designed to offer fast performance for even the most demanding connected homes. They include two routers (the HD Media Router 1000 with HD Fuel DIR-657 and the Whole Home Router 1000 DIR-645), a Wi-Fi Booster (DAP-1525) and three Powerline 500 products (DHP-500AV, DHP-501AV, and DHP-540). Though announced today, most of these products were first introduced during CES 2011

D-Link says that the HD Media Router 1000 with … Read more

When it comes to home networking, we tend to pay attention to the central device, namely the router or the gateway unit, only when something is not going right. But that's not because we're forgetful. Good networking devices are designed to be taken for granted: the longer users can forget about them, the better the devices are.

In order for you to easily forget about them, they need to be easy to use as the initial setup process can be intimidating. Once in a while, you want to add new devices--say, a friend's laptop--to the wireless network … Read more

Announced at CES 2011, Trendnet's first true dual-band 450Mbps Wireless-N router--the 450Mbps Concurrent Dual Band Wireless-N Router, model TEW-692GR--is now about to be available for purchase, the company said today.

Unlike other 450Mbps dual-band routers, such as the Cisco Linksys E4200, which offers the higher 450Mbps speed only on the 5GHz frequency, the TEW-692GR is the first that also offers this higher speed on the 2.4GHz band at the same time.

Note that you'd need a wireless client that also supports the new 3x3 450Mbps standard to take advantage of the higher speed. An example would be … Read more

As World IPv6 Day gets closer, D-Link today unveiled its IPv6 Readiness, a new Web site dedicated to helping educate people on getting ready for the new Internet Protocol.

World IPv6 Day, on June 8, is when a few Internet companies, including Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Akamai, and Limelight Networks, will offer their content over IPv6 for a 24-hour test run.

When the Internet was first designed in the early '80s, the 4.3 billion addresses provided by the current Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4), seemed more than enough. Nowadays, with the rapid penetration of the Internet to so many devices, … Read more

In our experience, Verizon's claim about offering the fastest 4G network has been consistently correct in CNET tests. Its LG VL600 LTE USB Modem proved the fastest among its peers, and now the Samsung 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot SCH-11 is by far the fastest among 4G cellular routers CNET has reviewed. But it's far from perfect.

Measuring just 3.5 inches by 2.3 inches by half an inch, Verizon's compact and good-looking Samsung 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot SCH-11 is about the same size as Sprint's MiFi 4082 3G/4G Mobile Hotspot or T-Mobile's 4G Mobile Hotspot ZTE MF61. All three routers support 3G and 4G networks and offer Internet access for up to five Wi-Fi clients.

However, the similarity ends there. The Samsung device doesn't support most features available in the other two, such as GPS, Wi-Fi Protected Setup, an external antenna port, microSD slot for network storage, and so on. The router doesn't even allow Wi-Fi clients to communicate with one another. It's just a simple router that shares a very fast connection to the Internet. … Read more