NETGEAR D1500-100UKS N300 Wi-Fi Modem Router Essentials Edition

Update:-------Have been using for several months now, and the connection generally stays up for around a month at a time... Very happy :-)I've noticed that Amazon in their wisdom have lumped together reviews of several different netgear models... so unfortunately you need to sift through the reviews to get a true picture of any particular model <sigh>Original Review---------------I bought the DGN2200v3 a month ago and have been using it since it arrived. I bought it because I had been having issues with ADSL connection with my 7 year old modem router, which kept dropping the connection several times each day. Before buying I did a fair amount of research to try and get a modem that would maximise reliability. Many people on forums etc recommend the  Billion BiPAC 7800N Dual WAN ADSL2+/Broadband Wireless-N Gigabit Firewall Modem Router , however, I couldn't justify the high cost of that unit, so in the end chose this one.Setup:------Setup was really, really easy. My provider is TalkTalk, and the unit immediately recognised the provider and configured itself accordingly and connected to the internet as 'guest'. All I had to do then is enter my TalkTalk ADSL username and password. My home network was based on a different subnet and gateway address than the netgear, but changing the settings on the netgear to match my existing network was no trouble, and saved me having to reconfigure many other devices on my home network.ADSL Reliability:-----------------Initially the ADSL connection stayed up for 10 days with no disconnections :-)But then I started to have some issues. This is when the unique strengths of the unit came into play.As well as all the standard diagnostics via the web interface, it is possible to put the device into 'debug' mode and then access the unit via telnet. (The way to enable this is <router_ip>/setup.cgi?todo-debug and then you can telnet to the unit using the same username and password as the web interface). This allows you to access additional diagnostics and configure additional parameters (the ADSL Control command line tool to use is adslctl - google adslctl to find out more about how to use this).Also you can run a free monitoring tool against the unit to see in graph form what is happening to the connection over time (google RouterStats or RouterStatsLite - the 'lite' version is recommended unless you need the more advanced features of RouterStats).These features allowed me to 'see' what was happening with noise on my line... it turned out to be a fault on a phone extension cable. Once I could 'see' the problem, I was able to eliminate it, and maximise the quality of my connections. I now have the fastest and most stable connection that I've ever had. The connection stays up for more than a week at a time, at a speed of 8.2Meg (I used to get 7 - 7.5Meg with regular disconnections).Wireless:---------The wireless is where I have one issue with the unit. There seems to be a weakness in the wireless that is related to instability of the connection. While I was having the ADSL connection issues described above and the wireless radio turned on, the unit would get itself into a state where ALL internet access (either wired or wifi) would slow down to a snail's pace (200K on a speedchecker web site vs the usual 8Meg, even though ADSL was still claiming to be connected at 8 Meg) and once in this state, the only way to rectify was to reboot the router. On googling, this seems to be an issue that has affected other owners too ... in the end, while I was still having the ADSL connection problems, I had to disable the wireless radio to avoid the issue (fortunately I have a separate wifi access point that got me by). Now that the ADSL connection issues are all sorted out, wireless is back on and works just fine, with no repeat of the issue at all. (I guess that the unit's internals just got overloaded while having to cope with both the connections issues AND the wireless).I have very thick walls within my house (even internally), and this does a reasonable job. I use the wireless on this unit plus a seperate wireless N access point, each at a different end of the house, to cover the whole house. This unit seems to do an adequate / good, if not remarkable job.Chipset:--------The DGN2200v3 has a broadcom chipset (Broadcom BCM63281). Many people claim that it is best to match your ADSL modem chipset with your ISP's DSLAM chipset. I can't vouch for that theory as I can't really compare this unit to anything other than the really old one which it replaced (not a fair comparison). However, my TalkTalk servers at the exchange do also use Broadcom chipset (as do most TalkTalk exchanges - but beware there are exceptions particularly if the exchange equipment was 'inherited' by TalkTalk acquiring another ISP). One of the advantages of the DGN2200v3 is that it allows you to verify the chipset used in the ISP exchange equipment. This info is obtained via the adslctl command line (via a telnet session using the debug mode mentioned previously). IIRC it's "adslctl info --vendor" From which you'll be given a ChipSet Vendor Id. If the id is BDCM then the ISP uses Broadcom chipset at the exchange. The other chipset Vendor Ids can be found by googling for them.Overall:--------I debated whether to drop a star due to the wireless issue, but given that it has been resolved and considering all the other plus points (and most importantly a fast stable connection), this is getting a full 5 stars.

I bought the N-300 as an upgrade to my existing Netgear DG834G which seemed to keep dropping the line and I thought it might be time to go for a more powerful router. (It later turned out that I had a Java virus/trojan that might have been responsible). I decided to use the installation Wizard CD. This failed because the PC would not connect to the new router (using a LAN cable). When this test fails the Wizard freezes; I retried several times without success so I called Netgear support. The product had not been registered (obviously as I had un-installed the internet connection) so I had to go through a lengthy registration process (address, long serial numbers etc.) with the support engineer who spoke almost un-intelligble English. Thirty minutes later we started on trying to install the router and failed to connect to it. I volunteered that I had a laptop so we used this to log-in to the router in order to access the settings. This also failed until we decided to stop 'Microsoft Essentials' security software running. Why wasn't this mentioned at the start as a possible cause for the problem?!Anyway, finally we made the changes to the settings and after about one hour we had connected the laptop to the router both using the LAN cable and the wireless connection.I then mentioned that my desktop PC was not connecting. The engineer said I must have a problem with the wireless connector and dropped the line!Feeling very frustrated, after a cup of tea I then phone Netgear support again. This time I get through to a female engineer (in Manila) who speaks better English and is sympathetic to my problem.After changing back to 'Factory Setting'using the famous paper-clip method we go through the whole installation process again.A major problem was that the engineer would ask about various LED lights on the front panel but there was no information in the box as to what they were called. I had to resort to describing the lights as 'the third from the right with a funny circle and a dot'..In fact there are two 'switches' that I still do not know what they are for (the last two on the RHS). Plenty of information as to the slots on the back of the router! I still do not know if these green lights should flicker all the time or whether they should be solid green. Suggestions?To cut a long story short: the wireless router is now working and seems to be fairly stable and offers better throughput than theold one as Skype calls are clearer.But Netgear: sort out the Wizard CD process and PLEASE provide an illustration of the front lights with a name for each. I can then describe this to the engineer to check installation processes.Order processing and delivery from Amazon via 'in2digital' was excellent.Phew!

I purchased this to replace my old DG384G which was starting to become unreliable due to a software hack that I'd put on it. I hunted around for a WiFi ADSL router for quite some time as I was quite specific on what I wanted, and there's loads to choose from out there. However as I have used Netgear products for quite some time in the home I decided to stick with them.I find the Netgear interface is neatly put together and very easy for people who aren't too computer savvy, however still feature packed to keep most of us geeks happy. It's dead easy to setup and get connected to the Internet and it runs like a dream, so far no drop outs from the Internet or from the wireless clients (I've had 6 devices connected all at once and had no issues) and I've never needed to reboot the thing. The range of the signal is also brilliant, I can get a good signal all over the house and at the far end of the garden (granted, I don't live in a mansion but it still out performs the old DG834G).It comes with a USB port too for mass storage so you can connect your external hard drives to it to allow the to act as a NAS box. It would've been nice if Netgear had allowed printers to connect to this USB port to allow network printing but I guess that would bump the price up quite a bit.The only issue I have with this router is that the aerials are fixed, thus not giving you the opportunity to change them, however with the range of signal I'm receiving that's not really causing an issue.On the whole this is an excellent wireless router with a very cheap price tag and I would certainly recommend it for anyone wanting a reliable network for their home.