EtherFast Cable/DSL Router Review

Rock solid and very popular. Sports 4 10/100 ports for your LAN and one 10BT for the WAN (DSL or CM). Also read my review in the articles section. at Amazon.com |  Details and customer reviews

Pros

• Unbeatable low cost
• Real 10/100 switch for the LAN side (4 ports)
• Lots of indicators for easy troubleshooting
• Very easy to set up using web based admin interface
• Good quality manufacturing

Cons

• Very rudimentary firewall (static packet filter)
• No PPTP, L2TP & IPSEC tunneling for VPN (*)
• Can only use one IP address on the WAN side

(*) May be coming as updates to the firmware.

Who needs it?

If you want to share a cable modem connection between up to 4 computers, and the ISP gives you only one IP address, you need to have some sort of gateway. As described in great detail in some of the internet sharing articles, this can be done with software running on a PC also, but it is a lot more convenient to do it with a small stand-alone box. All the standard stuff like DHCP client for the WAN side, DHCP server for the LAN side, NAT (Network Address Translation) is all handled by this box, so there is no need for setting any of the computers up in any special way to make this work. And if you are using an ISP that charges you extra for additional IP addresses, you can save that money and buy this box instead.

Hooking Up

I spent less than 15 minutes hooking this thing up, which is really good. Obviously I know what this thing does, so there was no learning curve involved. And it does all the simple things you would expect it to do in exactly the way I expected, so no big surprises.

This shows the wiring of the box - very simple. One CAT5 Ethernet cable goes to the cable modem, and one cable goes to each of the up to 4 computers on the home LAN.

The WAN connection is limited to 10 Mbps Ethernet, and that is plenty enough as most broadband connections never gets over about 1.5 Mbps for any periods of time. The 4 LAN side connections are 10/100 and operate as a switch, which is better than a hub. With a switch, two computers can exchange data at 100 Mbps, even if a third computer is connected at 10 Mbps only. With a 10/100 hub, all computers in this example would have been operating at 10 Mbps only.

Configuration

All configuration is done through a set of neatly organized build in web pages, that you can connect to using any standard web browser like Internet Explorer or Netscape. The first page holds all configuration most users will ever need.

There is also a configuration wizard that runs on a Windows system, but it is not really required as all configuration can be done very easily with a browser.

WAN side configuration

• Router Name – equivalent to the computer name in Windows networking setup (used by some ISP's).
• Domain Name – equivalent to the workgroup name in Windows networking setup (used by some ISP's).
• Obtain IP address automatically – get the IP address from the ISP through DHCP.
• Or Specify an IP Address, Subnet Mask, Default Gateway Address and DNS (Domain Name Server) Address – this is required if the ISP uses static IP addresses and not DHCP.

LAN side configuration

• LAN IP Address and Subnet Mask – sets the range of addresses that are used on the home LAN. Any private LAN should use non-routable addresses in the 10.0.0.0, 172.16.0.0 or 192.168.0.0 blocks (per RFC 1597).

On the LAN side there is a build-in DHCP server, so all computers can get their IP address and setup automatically through DHCP. That makes it very easy to set up the client computers. Also a laptop computer that is being used both at work and at home will be able to just plug in, if the workplace is also using DHCP. No reconfiguration of the laptop required.

Advanced

The router supports a few so-called advanced features like:

• Packet filters (this is what Linksys calls a firewall, but by today’s standards that is stretching it a bit).
• Static port mapping (for running specific servers on the home LAN, something that would normally be problematic due to the NAT function).
• Dynamic routing
• Static Routing
• DMZ host (to place one computer outside the packet filter and NAT function.

I would expect most users never need to fiddle with those settings, but it is nice to know that they are available.

Inside

Opening the box is a bit tricky, but if you do it, you will find two PCB’s stacked on top of each other. One holds the 10/100 Ethernet switch based on the LES105 chip from ADMtek (Taiwan). The other board does the routing function and WAN side interface. This is done in software running on a KS32C5000 CPU from Samsung, which is essentially an ARM core in a chip. This chip has around 50 MIPS performance, so I would not expect to see IPSEC as a firmware upgrade (probably not enough performance).

The manufacturing quality of the unit I examined was very high, and parts and processes all seem to be up to the standards you should expect for a quality product. None of my tests disclosed any firmware problems, but obviously I can not guarantee you will not run into any bugs.

International Version

The small external power supply is a full wide input switching power supply, so even though it comes with a standard 110V US plug, it is really ready for use anywhere in the world. I took my unit with me from US to Europe, changed the plug on the detachable power cord and was up and running on 220V with no problem.

Conclusion

All in all thumbs up for a good product. I will recommend this product to any small and simple home Ethernet LAN with a shared broadband connection, be it cable modem or DSL. It just needs to be a 10 BaseT Ethernet connection.

You can buy this product directly on the web from Amazon.com for just below $160. That is definitely a very good buy.

Review date: 3/28/2000 (Linksys Model BEFSR41)

Update Aug'00:

A new firmware release is available from Linksys (V1.33 beta) that allows you to set the WAN side MAC address. This is perfect if your cable modem service provider authenticates based on MAC address and you know what you are doing.