Prismiq IWR-5010 Commander wireless router review: Prismiq IWR-5010 Commander wireless router

Need to monitor your employees' Web use? Want to keep an eye on your kids' online interactions or see what sites they're looking at? If you answered yes, Prismiq's Commander IWR-5010 is the wireless router for you. Not only does it offer a sneak peek into what clients are doing and where they're surfing, it provides transcripts of instant messages. Thanks to Prismiq's Internet Warning and Control software, or IWACS, the IWR-5010 sets the pace in monitoring a network's operations, client activity, and data flow. Unfortunately, it lags on performance. But if you think average network speeds are a fair trade-off for network monitoring and a low price tag (the suggested retail price is $80, but Prismiq is offering a $20 rebate for customers who trade in an old router), then this is the router for you. If you value performance over the ability to spy on loved ones, check out the Belkin Wireless Pre-N router.

The Prismiq Commander IWR-5010 router comes with an AC adapter, a Cat-5 cable, a quick-setup guide, a CD with software and a 110-page electronic manual, and a pair of feet for standing the router on its side (you can also mount it on a wall). It has four wired ports, an uplink jack, and LEDs to show that it's online and which ports it's using. The IWR-5010 also has a recessed reset button and a gold-plated antenna connector so that you can boost range with an external antenna (included). The router provides a USB 1.1 outlet, but it's only for saving or restoring the unit's configuration.

As versatile as a Swiss Army Knife, the IWR-5010 router can play a variety of networking roles, including a wireless gateway, an access-point add-on for an existing network, or a WDS wireless bridge for extending a network without cables.

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Getting started couldn't be easier, thanks to the setup wizard, which asks five questions and configures the router according to your responses. We got online in about five minutes. If you prefer a more hands-on configuration, you can tap into the HTML-based configuration windows, which are detailed and thorough, although their dark-blue background can make the information hard to read. Using the configuration window, you can easily change basic settings such as the router's SSID and whether it uses a static IP address or lets a DHCP server dole them out automatically. You can block access to the LAN based on the client's MAC address.

Security on the IWR-5010 includes both WEP and WPA encryption. The router's firewall is adequate, with network-address-translation features and the ability to block access to questionable sites.

The Prismiq Commander IWR-5010 router is like an Internet control system that monitors the network and restricts access to questionable content. Its Internet Warning and Control Software (IWACS) not only lets you see who is connected, it also lets you watch incoming and outgoing traffic. For anxious parents and employers, the unique ability to monitor instant messages through the three major services (AOL, Yahoo, and MSN) is priceless--though your kids and employees won't share that opinion. We hit one snag during start-up, though: the router couldn't connect with the IWACS interface. Updating the router's software solved the problem. IWACS provides excellent logs, and its main screen provides a great at-a-glance view of the network action, but we were dismayed by its lack of a help section to assist with its many features.

The Prismiq Commander IWR-5010 router lacks the high-performance potential of competing MIMO routers, but it has a smaller price tag as well. In testing, the router performed adequately but lagged behind even the 802.11b/g competition, producing a maximum throughput of 19.8Mbps at 10 feet--well off the Netgear's WGU624's 42.1Mbps mark and a little better than half the speed offered by Belkin's MIMO-based Pre-N router. In mixed-mode operations, the top speed dropped to 10.4Mbps. In the long-range test, the Prismiq IWR-5010 reached 11.9Mbps at 200 feet, but that's still behind the U.S. Robotics' 19Mbps, and it pales in comparison with the performance of the MIMO devices we've tested, which stay connected for nearly 400 feet.

Prismiq provides a middle-of-the-road two-year warranty for the Commander IWR-5010 router, which is the same as Hawking Technology's warranty but can't compare to the lifetime coverage that Belkin provides. Phone support is free, but the help desk is open only Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. PT. Unfortunately, the phone help desk never returned our message. Online help was better. While the company lacks an online chat room, tech-support reps replied to e-mail within 10 minutes. We quickly diagnosed a problem and fixed it with four rapid-fire e-mail messages from tech support that were right on target. The company's Web site provides downloads of the latest software and electronic copies of quick-start documents and manuals. Unfortunately, the FAQs are more concerned with the IWR 50010's purpose and design than with its actual operations.