Rating: 
Summary: Great for home networking!
Review: I do this sort of stuff for a living, so I may take some of my knowledge for granted when setting this up -- but I thought this was FREAKIN EASY.I understand some people complain about the range of the product, but realistically, unless you have an enourmous house then you are going to be satisfied. I personally have an apartment, so the range is more than sufficient. I, my roommate, and my geeky friends that come over with their wireless equipped laptops never have any bandwidth problems whatsoever. Unless you use the LAN frequently (local area network...not the internet), then you probably won't see a degradation of performance over traditional wired networks -- you'll be limited by your cable or DSL connection instead. There are still ethernet ports for those people that want wireless and wired from the same router. This has a PPPoE client built-in, so if you have to "dial-up" to access your DSL (i.e. verizon, earthlink, etc.), then you can configure the router to do it for you -- and reconnect automatically if you are booted. It's MUCH better than the WinPoet software that your ISP will have you install and crash your computer and have you booted off frequently. No problems 3d gaming online. Note: people, please setup WEP encryption to access the network. It's really easy and that way people (neighbors, drive-by hackers) can't consume your bandwidth and steal/change your files.
Rating:
Summary: EZ setup with Win 98, Great Reception, Great product
Review: OK. I have to admit I was a little nervous about this product given the mixed reviews in this forum. HOWEVER, this product is great! Setup with my existing cable modem took 5 minutes. I quickly linked up my comcast.net connection to the router which connected my Win 98 desktop and Win 98 laptop (via linksys WPC11 Wireless network PCMCIA card)to the net. The included quickstart card gave me everything that I needed to know. Linksys has great web support (drivers, firmware updates, FAQs) on their website at www.linksys.com I had a much more difficult time getting my laptop and desktop to communicate as a network, but I never set up a network before. I simply played around with it till I could file share. Easily done if you have any experience with networks; I did it as a novice. The router is configured as a DHCP server which hands out IP addresses to all of the computers on the network. Only the router is seen from the outside net which adds a bit of security to your own LAN "intranet". For true safety you likely need some good firewall software. Configuring the router to accept 128 bit wireless encryption was a snap. As I mentioned I also bought the WPC11 PCMCIA card to connect my laptop. Setup was easy, and reception from the wireless router covers my house. I could even carry my laptop outside on my front lawn and surf the net. Very cool. Some people have said the netgear card is better, but I had no problems. It is important to play around with the location of the router. When i first set it up it was on a shelf on my prorch which structurally used to be an outside wall. Reception was barely 5 feet. When i moved the router two feet inside my home reception easily went 50 feet in all directions. Overall 5 star product
Rating:
Summary: Easy set up, flawless performance
Review: There's not much I can say about this router, I had a little trouble the first time i set it up, because I was excited and didn't read the instructions. So I patiently went through the manual and set it up the right way, I stuck the thing in my bedroom closet and I havent had to touch it since, it works great and I get good reception even outside in the lawn.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent product - 5 min set up, 11 and 2mbps across floors
Review: I bought this few weeks ago while setting up my home network and simply love it. It took me all of 5 minutes to set up (thru the web style gui) and get my desktop (wired) and laptop (wireless) hooked onto the broadband connection (both had NON linksys ethernet and wireless cards). The ranges are great (i placed the router central to the house) get excellent 11 mbps around the first floor, second floor, and backyard except for the farthest rooms where i get 2 mbps - still enuf for my broadband connection (> 1.5 mbps).. Never had any isssues till now.. The downsides - eh, could have used (a) a dialup modem option for broadband downtimes, (b) print server, (c) firewall.. oh well, what the heck.. it still rocks at what it does..
Rating:
Summary: Works great!
Review: It functioned perfectly right out of the box. Set-up took all of five minutes. Signal strength is fine.
Rating: 
Summary: 3COM modem owners, WATCH OUT!!
Review: I bought the BEFW11S4 and was told that it was practically plug-n-play into my XP system. For most people that may be the case, but if you own a 3COM cable modem, you may have big problems like I did. After spending about a week on the phone with both AT&T and LinkSys (both of whom were TERRIBLE at customer support, and very uncooperative), I was still unable to establish a WAN IP address between my router and my modem. However, the modem worked fine when connecting directly to my PC. I was about ready to give up and send back the router, when I was browsing through the LinkSys online knowledge base and found buried in there an article titled:
"3COM cable modem not receiving the WAN IP from the router"
This was my EXACT problem, according to the article, SOME 3COM modems with model #3CR29220 have "polarity" issues connecting to routers, hubs and switches, and that 3COM manufactures a "polarity cable" to fix the problem.
I called 3COM, and after they did some digging, they verified that I was correct and are in the process of sending me this mysterious cable (3COM part# 1.003.8600).
So after a disatrous week of fighting with AT&T, LinkSys, and my PC, I am finally hopeful a resolution is near.
In summary, this is a good product, but if you own a 3COM modem, be careful, and don't look to LinkSys for any "knowledgable" support.
Rating: 
Summary: The cover range is too SHORT!
Review: On the ads it says the cover range for indoor use can reach 300 feet, but the ones (wireless router and wireless PC card both from Linksys) I bought they just could go less than 10 feet. The signal strength could never beyond 60% even the antennas were as close as 3 INCHES to the PC card. The tech suggested me to return them back. That's a quick solution. PS. After this incident, I bought a Lucent OriCONO wireless PC card and D-Link wireless router at similar price. Both work great and, regardless of upstair or basement, the signal keeps at 100% strength.
Rating:
Summary: Awesome
Review: I purchased this unit through Amazon.com received it a couple days later and it was up and running in no time. I currently have two laptops running wireless using the Linksys WPC11 PCMCIA cards. I plan on hardwiring my desktop soon and using it as a file/print server. My apartment is not very big so I can't really give an opinion on range, but I am getting super fast downloads. I highly recommend this product.
Rating:
Summary: AWESOME product with Linksys Wireless PC Card ver. 3!!!
Review: I bought this system about a week ago and I love it!!! I was a little worried about some of the reviews from other people saying it was bad, but I thought it was very nice and i also bought the Linksys Wireless Network PC Card ver. 3 and they work great together. I can finally be online and be in my family room watching tv at the same time!! It is really cool. The range is outstanding and i can even go into my backyard, lay on my hammock and surf the web as fast as i would have with a cable connection. ITS WORTH THE MONEY, BUY IT!!
Rating:
Summary: Take the time to find the optimal space in your house
Review: I had an existing DSL modem that was connected to a notebook through a Category 5e cable, but wanted to connect two other notebooks. I did the research and decided on this unit. It worked right out of the box, with no changes to be made to the setup at all. Still, I changed my SSID and turned on 128bit encryption, just to be safe. Now I run a VPN over it, plus multiple firewalls -- I couldn't be more happy. One tip for finding the ideal place where to position this unit: Just move the unit to different spots throughout your house or office, power it on, then walk around with your notebook and measure the signal strength for your WI-FI card. I ended up putting the router on the top shelf of a closet, which is right in the middle of the house. Even although the signal has to travel through multiple walls, I got better coverage throughout my (one story) house than in the spot I had picked initially (off the center, but with less walls to interfere) If you cannot get good connection throughout the house, buy another wireless access point and connect the router and the wireless access point through a Cat5e cable. Update: Reduced my rating to three stars. I'm on my third unit now and my warranty is expired. The wireless radios died within months on the first two, so I hope this one will have better quality or I have to buy a new one.
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