Rating: 
Summary: A great broadband sharing solution for SOHO
Review: The RT311 is a simple, easy-to-install solution for sharing a broadband Internet connection for small office / home office (SOHO) users. It's about as close to plug and play as you're likely to get.Most situations can be covered with the Windows-based installation tool. You'll need all the pertinent info from your provider (IP address, gateway address, DNS address, netmask, etc.), but with this in-hand, the graphical installer makes it easy. More advanced needs, and people who frequently play online multi-user games, will need more expertise to use the RT311. Advanced configurations can only be made by telnetting to the box itself, or by connecting a serial cable and using a terminal program. This won't be an easy task for average users, and while the manual is well-written and thorough, it can't (and doesn't) train newbies on the basics; some level of skill is assumed. Its "firewall" security is centered around NAT (network address translation), which does afford some level of security for your network. (It's also what makes connection sharing work.) In short, private IP addresses are assigned to PCs on your network, and the RT311 remaps connections to a single public IP address assigned by your provider. In this way, your PC is not directly accessible from the outside world, since by default, unsolicited incoming TCP/IP connections are denied access to the network. That's fine, but for real security, look to a SonicWall or something more advanced. The RT311 won't likely do much for certain types of hacker attacks, like Denial of Service (DoS), "ping of death," IP spoofing, and the like, which some more sophisticated solutions do address. NAT also causes problems for some applications. For example, IRC will be tough to use, because most IRC servers require IDENT, and IDENT requests won't pass through the device to your desktop. Dialpad.com, Napster uploads to other users, and a variety of other applications will not work in the RT311's default configuration. You'll need to configure "SUA" for this (i.e., port remapping), but again, that requires telnet or a terminal program, and non-technical users will likely find this a challenge (at least at first). In addition, your port remapping capabilities are limited. You have your choice of remapping everything to a particular machine on the network (not a good idea, and defeats all firewall security, so use it temporarily and sparingly), or mapping selected ports by number. But you can configure a maximum of only six (6) of those, which may not be enough for power users or networks with many users and applications. (The D-Link and Linksys solutions that compete with the RT311 offer just slightly more flexibility here.) Using a hardware solution like the RT311 is, in my experience, far better and more reliable than software-based solutions like WinProxy. (But of course, WinProxy offers web caching, content filtering, and other features that the RT311 and its competitors do not. But I favor the reliability of a dedicated piece of hardware to loading down my PC with yet another task.) Otherwise, the unit does as advertised. It's economical, well supported, well warranted, and well built. Its manual, which is supplied electronically, is as good as they come. And most everything you'll need is in the box (including the basic required cables). One final note: Be aware that this is a real, Ethernet-based solution. You'll need a 10-Base-T or 100-Base-T local area network (LAN), including hubs or switches as needed, and your DSL or cable modem will also need 10-Base-T Ethernet for hook-up. (This box is not really the right choice for sharing dial-up or ISDN connections.)
Rating:
Summary: excellent !!!!
Review: The RT311 worked right out of the box with Media One Cable. The setup was very straightforward. It has a nice ip address translation capability for multiple systems attached to a single cable modem. I ran the firewall test at ShieldsUp against the RT311, and the RT311 passed all tests. This should help prevent others from breaking in to your computer across an always-up link. The product is well crafted, including a metal case. Documentation is excellent. There appears to be no degrading of the data throughput with the insertion of the RT311. In short, this is an excellent router and firewall. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Netgear Equals Superb Service
Review: This holiday season I was a good santa and purchased numerous wireless networking products for my various family members. Sure it was partially a selfish act as I wanted to be able to easily connect when I went to visit, but for the most part it was just an act of giving. I purchased mainly G products and they varied from routers to USB adapters to PC Card adapters. I did also purchase a couple of B products for those in the family that already had some wireless networking products (yes, I know they are backwards compatible but I didn't want to take any chances).
Only two members of the family had installation problems (considering my family is very non-technical I was quite impressed) and those two people both had yet to upgrade to Windows XP SP2. The rest of the family members were up and running within minutes.
As for the couple of family members that did have problems, well they called me first (of course) and I told them to just run back through the installation procedure again. This solved the problem for Uncle Dennis but Grandma Joyce still couldn't get it to work properly. I reluctantly told her to call Netgear's technical support (hey the reviews on Amazon haven't been too pretty for their tech support). I however was quite pleased when an hour later I got an email from Grandma Joyce thanking me for the great gift. I called her back and she told me that after fiddling with the settings with the Netgear people she was up and running within 30 minutes.
Overall, I consider this the ultimate test of product quality and support and I would give Netgear two thumbs up.
I hope this review was helpful to you in putting your mind at ease regarding ease of setup and trust of technical support if needed.
Rating:
Summary: Surfing the Internet's Waves With My Keyboard. . . .
Review: This is a simply amazing product. First, I read plenty of reviews on the internet about connecting my RoadRunner connection with the RT311 router, and I was pleased with all of them. So, I ordered it, and I was blown away by how fast I was able to set it up; it actually took longer to open the package. I didn't even have to go through the web-based wizard, which seemed pretty easy to navigate through, anyway. It's a great price. I truly recommend it! It rocks.
Rating: 
Summary: It just works
Review: This review is actually for the RT314, which Amazon ought to sell in addition to the RT311. (The only difference being that the RT314 functions as a four-port ethernet switch in addition to being an Internet router.) I just plugged the thing in, hooked up all the cables, and it worked. That simple. I went to grc.com to test the firewall capability, and found that it works very well. No complaints. I knocked my rating down one star because the documentation leaves something to be desired if you want to get into advanced firewall filters. The HTML browser-based setup utility doesn't go far enough in getting into advanced filters, and instead you'll find using a decidedly unintuitive interface to make such changes. The good news is that probably 99% of the folks out there won't even need to do the advanced stuff. They can just plug it in, use the default settings, and it works great. Good job, Netgear.
Rating:
Summary: This one actually works!
Review: This router is the best works with anything and NetGear has a 5 year warrenty too! NetGear is what my whole network is based around and wouldnt use anyone else after useing linksys which was the absoutly worst hardware in the world.. NetGear makes great products!
Rating:
Summary: Better Than Linksys
Review: This unit is great and easy to set up but beware. This unit comes with a crossover cable and standard cat 5 cable. You must use the crossover cable if connection to a hub must be made. The instructions calls for the standard cat 5 to be used and this didn't work for me. Other than this the unit is easy to set up and works great. My internet connection even seems like it's going faster with the router as opposed to not haveing it. My friends purchased the 4 port Linksys and it locks up and has to be reset almost every day.
Rating:
Summary: excellent piece of hardware
Review: very easy to set up and very impressed with the performance.
Rating:
Summary: Just as advertised
Review: Wanted to add my two cents about this product. After messing around with proxy server software, tying to set up a windows box to run both a LAN and a RR WAN, I deceided to give a router a try. Read the reviews here and ordered product. Worked perfectly. Only problem I had was the box I hooked it up to had two NIC cards (one for LAN, one for cable ISP)and could not connect to router. Removed the LAN card, rebooted and could connect w/o problem. It cost a few bucks more than just software, but more than makes up for it (IMHO) be decreasing the hassel factor.
Rating:
Summary: Netgear RT311 - Easy setup and solid performance
Review: We just got a cable modem for hour home one week ago. Our PCs were already connected together using a hub in a simple peer-to-peer network. Getting them all on the net using the cable modem was the next step. The Netgear RT311 did so very easily. It came with everything that was needed and the FirstGear software was easy to use. One cable went to the modem, another to the hub, then the software configured the router. The manual (on the CD) explained how to get the little bit of information that the router need. I was able to configure it and our little network in less than an hour with no calls to customer support. It allows up to 32 PCs to share either a cable or DSL modem and use just one IP address. It also provides firewall support to help keep netizens out of your PC which is supposed to work better than the software-only firewalls. For those who need to change the default configuration of the router can do so either by telnetting into it or through the serial port. It looks rock solid since it has a metal case. It comes with a five-year warranty and 24/7 support. Ours has been in use for less than a day but it was easy to set up and so far the performance is excellent.
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