Rating: 
Summary: DON'T BUY THIS PRODUCT
Review: I made a HUGE mistake, I bought this router before read the customer review.....This item works fine until I set up encryption mode, because I really need it, but it stop to work. Installation is really easy, but al least 50% of features doesn't work. Advice, go for others vendors, I will ship a Linksys.
Rating: 
Summary: Wow! is the word you hear when you use this Router.
Review: It is really 1,2,3 steps to set this up and it took only few minutes to get it going. I had some trouble setting up as I had some customized settings on my PC to use earlier LinkSys Switch. Once I un did those settings it's really smooth and the customer service from India (through 1-800 number) is excellent and they even explained the steps as they walked me through.I am using LinkSys USB access point with this SMC router and there was no problem in configuring them to communicate to each other. I would say if you can cruise the web, then you can install this on your computer. A+ is rare but I can't give any other rating than A+.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent wired router, so-so wireless...
Review: I was upgrading from a three year old NetGear RT311 Cable/DSL wired Router because I wanted wireless 802.11b capability. The main reason I bought the SMC Barricade SMC7004VWBR over other wireless routers was the low price. In comparision with my previous router's wired ethernet capabilitues, the SMC Barricade was slightly easier to setup and the web-based setup and maintenance menu is certainly a great improvement. Besides that, it offers a lot of features for the money - DHCP, NAT, Firewall, 64 and 128 bit WEP (Wireless Encription), Status log, etc. Wireless capability for me was a convenience and not a must-have, because my laptop at home is mostly connected via Ethernet. Only with my Sharp Zaurus SL-5500 PDA (with Linksys WCF12 WiFi CompactFlash card) did I really need wireless. Using the SMC EZ Connect Wireless PC Card on my Dell Inspiron (running Windows 2000) I noticed the signal strength was nearly 100% upto 20' away from the router. When I took the laptop to my bedroom, about 30' away from the router and separated by two dry walls, the signal strength dropped to 50%, but with no loss in connection. The Sharp Zaurus SL-5500 PDA with Linksys card similarly had no loss of connection. The only time I did notice a problem was when one morning the wireless network suddenly stopped functioning (whereas the wired ethernet network continued without a problem). I had to do a reset of the router (using the web menu) and then the wireless began functioning again. My bottomline recommendation is to get this router if wired ethernet is essential and wireless is not so critical.
Rating: 
Summary: frequency interference problem
Review: i tried Linksys- & SMC-wireless 4 port routers for my home network.(and i am using many cordless phones including Siemens cordless2.4Ghz phone at home.) These routers are 802.11b standard and use 2.4Ghz frequency. Both suffered from frequency interference problem, and lost signal strength(to near zero level) every morning when i turned on my wireless laptop to use. I called SMC tech support, and they kindly gave me a clear solution, which is to power off/on SMC router every morning. If anyone has 2.4Ghz cordless phones at home, you better avoid these two routers at least. I will try Netgear and Dlink soon and if they don't work well either, then I will have to choose the costly 802.11a(5.4Ghz) router. Another bad thing about SMC7004 is that SSID did not work out and there is no way to prevent anonymous wireless log on to your LAN unless you setup 64- or 128-bit WEP. And my wireless adapter does not have WEP option. One more bad thing about SMC7004; Multiple admin logon to router setup page is not allowed. Whereas Linksys allows it, and I can control the Linksys router setting from any computer.
Rating: 
Summary: Tempermental and difficult to maintain
Review: Like most others who wrote reviews, I was attracted to the price of this unit and the ability to have a router and wireless access point in one unit. I should also mention I chose this router because it explicitly supports Macintosh computers (including AppleTalk) and its setup is web-based. Ironically, the setup with my Powerbook using Airport was painless, and I've not had a single problem with it. I love the web-based administration, and the range of functions you have (MAC control, WEP, SPI, Firewall, etc.). The biggest hassles I have had with this router revolve around its DHCP server and getting it to communicate with my wife's Sony Vaio with a D-Link DWL-650+ card. So far, I've had no luck even using static IP. I've not needed to reset this box like some others. Your mileage may vary. Tech support is based in India. Very polite, but they follow a script pretty rigorously and I haven't been referred to a higher level technician despite repeated calls. Bottom line - an OK unit. I suspect there are better ones out there, but for now, it fits the bill.
Rating:
Summary: Good, Secure Wireless Solution!
Review: This unit has been great. I've had it for almost a month and waited to see how it performed before I wrote a review. Here are a few of it's positives: 1. It's cheap! After rebates, I got this unit, plus the matching PCMCIA wireless adapter for only [...]! 2. It's simple! You just plug your Cable modem into the WAN port, power it up and run the configurator on the CD included. Any idiot can set this up. I had a DHCP allocated IP address and was browsing the web in under 10 minutes. 3. It's secure! With 802.11b, I was worried about security. I mean, anyone could drive up with a notebook and tap into my LAN to get an IP. But this baby has a built in MAC Address filter. You log your home computers on once, then copy their MAC addresses to an 'allow' list using a web form. It takes about 2 minutes and now, nobody gets access to my lan (wireless or otherwise) without having their MAC address on the 'allow' list. 4. Range is good. I can go anywhere in my two story house and never get worse than a 'good' connection (3 bars at the worse) and I keep this unit in a closet with the cable modem at the farthest corner of the house. Don't expect to take your notebook next door to the neighbor's house, but I can go sit on the back deck or in an upstairs bedroom no problem. In conclusion, this is a good unit and I got it because my last firewall was also a barricade (sans wireless) and it worked great too. I was a tad sad to see they dropped the printer port for sharing a printer on the wireless model, but I like that they still have the serial port for hooking up an external modem. If your cable goes out, or if you only have dial-up, you can still use this thing to get on the net and share your connection! The ONLY thing that I have noticed about this that I wish was different is that you can't set the IP address of the NTP Time server that it will access to sync up the current time. It tries to find one automatically at boot time, and if it can't for some reason, it just won't sync. But it doesn't really matter that much, it just means that it is like a regular clock and will lose time a second a day or something. I'm really happy with this thing.
Rating:
Summary: I Have Had Every Single Problem Everyone Else Had!
Review: When this SMC 7004 VWBR router is working it works fairly decently. But it is not at all consistent. Getting this router up and running was a virtual nightmare. If I knew what I was in for I would have definitely bought another brand. Tech support is in India and the people are very polite but absolutely clueless as to the nature of anything challenging. The first router kept on failing and Tech support did not have any solution that worked,and finally it gave out altogether. It was exchanged and the second one has been somewhat better...i.e. at least it somewhat consistently works. And, if you have a Mac like me forget about any assistance from Tech support, you might as well be speaking a foreign language. And guess what? Tech support blames every failure related issue on the Mac. Even now it still spontaneously conks out and needs to be restarted which sometimes works and sometimes requires you to just wait a while and keep your fingers crossed. If I hadn't already removed the UPC code for the manufacturers rebate this definitely would have been returned! Basically the only positive aspect of the whole transaction was Amazon.com. The shipping was free, the price was reasonable, and my order arrived fairly quickly considering it was right after Christmas.
Rating:
Summary: Good, but need some configuration.
Review: At the first a few days of using this router, it locked up a lot. I found out that when I am using my 2.4GMhz cordless phone, the SMC router locks, which doesn't happen when I use my Microsoft wireless router. The only different between them is that the MS router sets the channel to 5 while the SMC sets to automatic by default. I updated the firmware, and set the channel to 5. After that, it works perfectly with my Microsoft and Dlink wireless pc card with no any single problem at all. I am using it under 64 bit WEP. Didn't try 128 bit WEP.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent product of good price
Review: Just bought the product a week ago when it's on sale (40 after rebate). I bought it because of the wireless feature. After a few minutes of setup, and both my laptop(wireless) and destop connect to internet and connect with each other!! No problem so far. Highly recommended, especially for its good price and good performance.
Rating:
Summary: I have no regrets
Review: I was kinda hesitant about buying this router, but I could not beat the price. The three step installation is easy but it doesn't configure your securtity (a must for wireless). If you know what you are doing then configuring the router is not hard at all. If you don't know much about networking then you'll probably be in for a headache when it comes to the security settings. I can't see any speed difference between the barricade and my linksys. One thing I really liked about this router is that it has MAC filtering. The new firmware has seem to be working great so far, I'll give it time. I would have to say that this router is well worth the money that [Amazon.com] is asking for it.
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