Belkin N+ Wireless Modem Router

[Golfert]

Belkin has launched its glossy black Vision broadband routers it set a design standard that much of the competition followed as black was suddenly very much in vogue. It allows to distribute Internet connection across wired and wireless computers, it can also be used to share a USB hard drive across your local area network.Its latest N+ Wireless Modem Router, the F5D8635UK4A, keeps to the same colour scheme but goes all matte on us and loses the distinctive LCD display panel as well.

The router is made to work in the vertical position only, with two antennas on top, making it significantly taller than most routers.It has a built-in Gigabit Ethernet switch,through which it occupy maximum bandwidth you are liable to get.The overall structure of a Belkin N+ router has very nice structure, such as the ports and blue LED lights, located on the back and front of the router, respectively, are clearly labeled, and, as such, even novice users won't have a problem figuring out the function of each port and the meaning of each light.

[Golfert]

The lovely blue icons on the front panel tell you what’s going on with the router and are handy for troubleshooting. You will need to have a modem plugged into this router so that you can access the Internet; this can be a standalone Ethernet-based modem or a modem/router.When the blue computer icon is visible, you’ve established a wired connection to your PC; when the blue modem icon is visible, then you know that the modem is connected; when the blue Earth icon is visible, then you’re on the Internet.

At the rear you have four Ethernet LAN ports but unlike the N+ Wireless Router model these are not the Gigabit variety. The N+ incorporates an ADSL modem and you also get a Draft 2.0 compliant 802.11n single band wireless access point. There is no need to worry about VPI/VCI or other cryptic settings. You just select the type of connection you have (PPPoE for ADSL2+) and enter your username and password. The USB port adds some useful storage related features as you can connect a memory stick or an external storage device and share its contents over the network.

Although the N+ lets you connect an external USB hard drive, it is, in fact, not a full-featured NAS server.Once you have plugged a USB hard drive into the router, the BSM application takes about 10 seconds to detect it and create a network drive mapped to it.

[Golfert]

The NAT/SPI firewall can no longer be disabled although why you'd want to do this is anyone's guess.you can use the WPS (Wi-Fi Protected Setup) button to find and automatically implement a commonly supported wireless setting across all of your other wireless devices. Virtual servers are used to route inbound traffic to specific servers based on port ranges and you have 20 entries available.Belkin N+ supports an array of network features, such as IP address reserving, port forwarding, access control, and firewall. A single DMZ (demilitarised zone) entry allows one LAN system to step away from the firewall whilst access controls are used to specify selected systems and limit their access to services such as web browsing and email.

The shared storage feature isn't anywhere near as good as that offered by Linksys' WRT610N although this dual-band router does cost twice as much as the N+. Wireless networking is supported for 802.11b/g/n devices and there are three antennas in the router; t two-antenna router based on Ralink silicon (more shortly). But where the "N" has 10/100 WAN and LAN ports, the N+'s WAN and four switched LAN ports are gigabit. The N+ also has a USB port that will make a USB flash or hard drive available as a networked share.

[Golfert]

Features
Product
Belkin N+ Wireless Router (F5D8235-4)
Belkin N+ Wireless USB Network Adapter (F5D8055 v1)

Summary

• Single-band Draft 2.0 802.11n router with gigabit switch based on Ralink chipset

Pros

• Gigabit switch supports Jumbo Frames
• Guest access w/ captive web portal and AP modes
• Network sharing of USB flash or hard drive

Cons

• Basic routing feature set
• No control of file sharing feature
• Very slow file sharing

For wireless protection, the Belkin N+ supports both WEP (64-bit and 128-bit encryption) and WPA. It also supports MAC address filtering and Wi-Fi protected setup.

[Golfert]

Performance

Belkin N+ Wireless USB Network Adapter (F5D8055 v1) inserted into a Fujitsu P7120 Lifebook (1.2 GHz Intel Pentium M, 504 MB) notebook running WinXP Pro SP2 with all the latest updates.

The throughput performance of the N+ is also very impressive. It topped the charts on CNET Labs' range test by a large margin, scoring 77.8Mbps. The N+ was, by a small margin, the second best in our throughput and mixed mode test, scoring 87.5Mbps and 65.3Mbps, respectively.