Review: Linksys EtherFast Cable/DSL Router

So what the heck is a router you ask? Think of it as a networking device that is able to pass network data from one distinct network to another. In this case, the networks you want to connect are the Internet and your internal network.

Installation was a breeze and should be for anyone who has any experience with TCP/IP networking. The first step is to connect the router to your cable or DSL modem, and then connect your computers or hub to the router.  Then fire up a browser and type in the IP address of the EtherFast Cable/DSL Router, which is factory set to 192.168.1.1, and you can proceed to configure the router via its built-in web server (see screenshot).  

The EtherFast Cable/DSL Router utilizes Network Address Translation to route network traffic, meaning that you don't have to re-configure your browser, FTP program, and most games.  In addition, only a single IP address is needed for all your computers- in essence you give the IP address assigned to you by cable/DSL ISP to the router, and in turn it is able move traffic between the Internet and your internal network.  To simplify the setup process, you can even have the EtherFast Router act as a DHCP server and automatically assign IP addresses to your computers.  In this case all you have to do is select "Obtain an IP address automatically" for Windows-based machines and the router will take care of the rest.  Keep in mind that if you want to use some of the advanced features offered by the EtherFast Router, its DHCP server functionality must be turned off.  Below are the features and specifications of the EtherFast Cable/DSL Router according to Linksys:

The Linksys EtherFast Cable/DSL Router can take the place of your existing hub connects the computers on the network. In fact, it is better than hubs because it has a built-in switch, meaning that every port is capable of bi-directional, highest-speed data transfer. Although the EtherFast Cable/DSL Router provides only four ports, you can easily connect another hub or switch to it.  The indicator lights at the front show network activity, and either 10 or 100 Mbp connection is established. Note that the router has a 10 Mbp "incoming" connection, which is fine considering today's DSL and cable modem services support anywhere between 384KBps to 2Mbps. For the internal network, however, the router supports 10 or 100 Mbps internal network speeds. Thus you get the maximum speed when copying files between PCs with 100 MBp NICs on your local network.

The EtherFast Cable/DSL Router works as advertised in keeping your PCs away from unfriendly net traffic.  During the two-day test period, not a single "attack" was detected by BlackICE, a personal security software by Network ICE.  Before the EtherFast Cable/DSL Router, the test computer connected to the DSL modem receives an average of five BlackICE warnings daily.

Adding to its appeal, the EtherFast Cable/DSL Router also has upgradeable firmware. I was able to easily update the firmware from 1.15.01 to 1.22 via an easy-to-use software (see screenshot) downloaded from Linksys.  Very nice.

I did run into trouble when attempting to configure IP forwarding, one of the advanced functionalities offered by the EtherFast Router.  IP forwarding is a very cool feature that allows specific IP requests (e.g. HTTP or FTP) made from the Internet to go to a specific machine (e.g. your web or FTP server) on the internal network.  It turned out that I had to disable DHCP, but if Linksys had stated this on the IP forwarding configuration page, it certainly would have saved some time.  Curiously, the configuration page for IP filtering (another advanced feature) does warn the user that DHCP must be disabled.  Other advanced features offered by the EtherFast Cable/DSL Router include support for dynamic and static routing, and DMZ host functionality.  Note that Linksys does not offer technical support for the advanced features, however.

Overall, if you want to share your broadband connection with your PCs at home or in the small office, the inexpensive Linksys EtherFast Cable/DSL Router is the easiest and most fully-featured solution out there today.  It certainly beats having to dedicate a computer to routing or even buying one of those ultra-expensive Cisco routers.  Highly recommended.