Linksys Cisco- E3000 Wireless-N Router

The ease of setup of the Cisco-Linksys E3000 router astonished me! I had a studio and household FILLED with multiple PC's and Macs, both desktop and notebook computers, and a PC server plus Mac G5 server for my AppleTV Library, iTunes Library, and this router self-configured itself with each and every computer/device/system that I own, some 12 machines in total, in less than 7 minutes for the full cycle of the auto-connect feature to take place.That FLOORED me totally, and I'm an advanced networking expert, who was prepared for a completely tough, manual install of this router but figured I'd give it a go with the Auto-Connect Feature of this router, by simply inserting the Cisco-Linksys CD ROM into my PC server's optical drive, and followed the prompts to the letter (to a point), let the router Auto-Configure each and every PC and Mac in my mixed-stable of computers here in my studio and throughout the house, 8 computers here in my studio near the router's plug-in to my Time-Warner RoadRunner HS Turbo Modem, and 4 other computers elsewhere in the house, and I'll be danged if the new E3000 didn't pull off the complete connection routing in less than 7 minutes actual time! CRAZY GOOD!I immediately fired up the router's web interface and went into the Advanced settings, and renamed the System from default to my regular/normal System's name, set up the web interface for my network Hard Drive and plugged in a 1TB USB external HD for network sharing and backup services, reconfigured the password to my rather complex 26-digit and symbol password for ultimate security purposes, set the "renew DHCP Lease" to my own specific schedule apart from default, adjusted Media and FTP Server setting to active, and a lot of other "host services" to manual settings vs the default settings, and in less than 30 minutes total time I disconnected my former "N-Spec" router, and turned the duties over to the new E3000.Suffice to say it's been literally plug and play since then, with only a minor glitch to report, and that was perhaps my own fault but it involved updating the firmware to the latest and greatest, and my update went awry somewhat...I ended up having to re-apply the new patch TWICE before it took and set up correctly, and BAM!! All was well again, settings were intact, and when I restarted the System it fired right up, everything popped up green, blue, and yellow LED's like it's supposed to do, and voila! Firmware update a success, all was well, and the system @ 100%.The Dual-Band aspect of this router gives it a special character, with the ability to transmit and receive signals and data simultaneously, at the same time literally, and maintain its incredible bandwidth in both the 2.4Ghz and 5.8Ghz channels without fault of any sort, and that's an amazing feature! My AppleTV system works significantly better than it did with the old MaxPower N-Spec Routerat full speed ahead, it being a single-band router and some 5 years old at the time I replaced it with the E3000.I find the web interface to be simple, and simplistic too, a nice interaction to work with when you want to customize any features, or change any settings manually vs the router's automatic setups. I have yet to have to restart or "recycle" this router after some 5 months of use thus far, which I consider to be very, very unusual given the nature of routers in general, but the Cisco-Linksys E3000 seems to be in a class by itself with respect to sustainability. It is also a router that you can place ANYWHERE with respect to its antennas being all internal (6 of them!), as I have placed it UNDER MY WORK STATION now, and there's no difference in the signal being all-pervasive and strong throughout my studio, and home to boot!I also use the router to handle the Administration of my twin RAID system's web interface, and that uses one of the Gigabit Ethernet Ports of the E3000 and plugs directly into the Areca 1680IX-8 Hardware RAID Controller, and that feature of the router has also worked without fail thus far, no issues at all! I have searched and tried to figure out S*O*M*E* weakness that this new E3000 router has, but alas there is nothing left to write or say with respect to things that are wrong with it, because the dang thing just works 100% for the good!Every day that I use my system here in the studio and throughout my home I marvel at its consistency, it steadfastness, and its power, just incredible in all those aspects of use with my heavy, heavy needs placed upon it, and it's just fantastic. It would be hard to say "it could be better", because I just don't know HOW or WHAT we could do so as to make it better than it is right now.I am transmitting millions and millions of bytes of critical information up to Standford University in the Folding@Home program, with 5 active computers in the program here in my home and studio, and it's IMPORTANT that each and every byte gets transmitted up there for the benefit of mankind, and the critical research that the researchers are doing, and this great Cisco-Linksys E3000 keeps the candles "lit" in my contributions to the Folding@Home program hour by hour, day by day, and week by arduous week...it just doesn't fail me, and that is all I could ask of it!I never thought I'd say something like this about a router, but this thing is SO FAR AHEAD of everything else out there that you can buy for your home or office use for a high-speed data network, be it from a HD Cable Modem system like what I have with me here, a DSL system, whatever way you can critically look at such a thing as a router which literally is the lifeline between you and the internet, and all it can represent, but I'll say this for the record: I don't think that there's anything better being made today, AT ANY PRICE, ANY CONFIGURATION, ANY SETUP WHATSOEVER THAN THE CICSO-LINKSYS E3000 Router!This thing is King of the Hill! I have actually purchased 4 of them since they were released in early June, 2010. The router that I bought this time went down to Australia to my business partner's home office to use there, because he cannot buy one in Australia at any price: they just aren't offered there yet, so I took it upon myself to score one for him and the network in his home office, and he is just like I am by now: a believer in this E3000 system 100% without qualification, without doubts, and without any negative thoughts whatsoever!It's not every day that we have products this good come into our lives and uses, and this ladies and gentlemen is the best router that the good, old All-American $$$ can buy, bar none, no doubt as to that statement! The Cisco-Linksys E3000 Dual Band Router gets the Wavey Davey 100% Solid Gold and 5-Star Award for Quality, Value, and Performance, bar none! There isn't anything quite like it no matter what other brands you look at, or even other Cisco-Linksys models for that matter, it stands alone as the No.1 router of any type today, in November 2010.Wavey Davey - November 14, 2010

My review will focus mainly on the user experience, rather than detailed technical specs. The router is fast (particularly if you are using systems capable of operating on Wireless-N), dual bandwidth is great, etc., but these benefits are all fairly and adequately set out in the product description.Pros of the user experience:This is, by far, the easiest network setup I've ever done. Just to demonstrate, I'll compare the setup of this router to the setup of a competitor, the D-Link DGL-4500 Xtreme N Selectable Dual Band Draft 802.11n Gaming Router (which is more expensive and does not permit simultaneous use of the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands).D-Link DGL-4500: Power off modem. Shut down computer. Plug Ethernet cable from modem into router. Plug router into computer. Turn on modem. Wait 30 seconds. Plug power adapter into router. Wait 30 seconds. Turn on computer. Follow the several steps of the "Internet Connection Wizard" to specify type of Internet connection. You may need to know the MAC address of the computer last connected directly to your modem.They're serious - I had this router before, and if you reorder any of these steps, your setup may fail. If, like me, you have a big cable modem that doubles as your landline connection with backup power that is not easily powered off, your setup can become even more frustrating.Cisco-Linksys E3000: Put in install CD. Plug Ethernet cable into router and power on (order does not matter). Click "Next" on install screen. Watch as the setup program does everything and you're online in about 2 minutes.That's it. I didn't have to specify anything, remember any MAC addresses, or worry about the order in which I was connecting all the various cables to set up my wireless router. Start to finish, I was online in about 3-5 minutes, including the time it took to open the Amazon box.Cons of user experience:Linksys technical support is frustratingly awful. My issue was that the router prompted me to update the firmware, and when I attempted to do so, it failed and rendered the router useless. All my attempts to reset the router and undo whatever had happened were in vain. The Linksys support page does not have any phone numbers or email addresses, just a guide, FAQs, and Live Chat, which is ridiculous when you consider that many router problems will push you offline and render "Live Chat" a useless option. The "Guide" has two options when you try to find help on firmware: Information about Cisco Connect and "how to upgrade firmware," neither of which helps. When you tell it that, the guide gives a link stating, "Click here to contact Linksys." Hallelujah, you may think! But the link is dead and leads to a "Page Not Found" error.I now have a replacement E3000, and am opting to simply never update the firmware.Overall, the product is 5 stars on performance, 1 star on support. I edged it up to 4 stars overall as most people won't have to deal with the 1-star side of things.

E3000 is definitely the best wireless router for home networking needs and connect multiple devices to internet and create a wireless home. In last 7 minths I have tested several aspects of this router and no wonder it is still at almost same price and a top-seller. Here is my review:Setup & install: Super smooth, simple, and easy, no hiccups at all.Guest Access: You can create a guest network separate with a simple password (optional) when you have visitors. You need not to share the password of your own network. You can turn on or off the guest network whenever you wish.Connecting to the network: CISCO Connect is a great tool to manage your network. It makes a USB drive which once inserted in to any computer can set it up on your network.Dual Band Networking: E3000 provides you two separate networks. One on 2.4GHZ and one on 5GHZ. 5GHZ band is less crowded and hence is better for streaming online content. Keep in mind that not all devices are equipped with a 5GHZ receiver/wireless adapters. Most notebooks have only 2.4GHZ adapters. However, media streaming devices like Blu Ray players (Sony BDP-S570 3D Blu-ray Disc Player, network connected TVs, and iPad have 5GHZ adapters. For your notebook you can get a Cisco-Linksys AE1000 High-Performance Wireless-N Adapter if you feel the need to do so. Otherwise the 2.4G on 802.11N will be very fast.Connection strength: Very good. I get good signal in my apartment, upstairs, and outside as well.Design: It looks very stylish and sleek. The blue colored thing on the outside is its antenna. That's why it doesn't have those two vertical antennae which look too bad.Number of Devices: It has 4 LAN outputs, which I have connected to a TV, BD Player, and Western Digital WDTV Full HD Media Player - Recertified. I prefer LAN to these devices since streaming is better than on 5GHz network even. Other than that I have usually 3 laptops and 2 iphones online.Router Management: Very easy through 192.168.1.1 as the browser address. Once in the router, you can do the advanced settings for security, can name the 2.4G & 5G networks as separate, connect a network hard drive etc. This is for advanced users. Otherwise, CISCO Connect is the easiest and simplest way to manage the network name & password, guest access, and parental controls.USB Port: There is a USB port at the back of this router, which you can use to connect and share an external hard drive. I use it to keep all my media and can see it directly on TV through WDTV or BD Player. Also, I ca copy-paste files in that drive wirelessly.CISCO support: I contacted CISCO twice through phone and once through their website to chat. First time the tech support guy took some time to resolve my issue with the network connectivity. Second time, the girl was very responsive & quick in helping me to setup my hard drive as network connected storage. Third time the chat support was also good as the guy gave me instructions to reset and reconnect my router to a different computer (no issue with hardware, it was my desire to do so). I liked their chat support on WebEX since all chat transcript was sent through email immediately. That helped me to do the resetting later.Overall, I am highly pleased with this product and highly recommend for hi-speed home networking.

So I bought this router in August. It worked perfectly fine. Set-up was easy, connecting to the network was nice and smooth, everything I expect from a Linksys router worked.A month later, I notice problems. One problem is that the download speed off of it drops to around 5mbps even though I should be getting +20mbps. I tried restarting my cable modem with no success. When I restart the router itself, speeds are back to normal afterwards. This happens every day, so I find myself having to restart the router right before my heavy internet usage for the day begins.Also, this router worked fine with the two Xbox 360's in the house for a while. All of a sudden, it started causing problems. Around the same time the speed problems arose, the Xbox 360's were reporting problems with Moderate NAT type. Playing online with other people may be troublesome when having a Moderate NAT type. My solution for changing it to Open NAT type was to restore the router with a backup I made of it. Works fine, just have to restore it every time it happens. This probably happens once every 1-2 weeks.I have the latest firmware for the router.This router was amazing until I ran into these problems. It's very frustrating when I forget to restart the modem before using the internet for the day as I would have to stop whatever I'm doing just to take care of this problem. I thought I would be able to handle it until Linksys might fix it with another firmware update. However, knowing Linksys, that waiting time may not be fast enough for my patience to last.I know for a fact that it's not just a faulty router because when researching the problem, I found MANY other people with the exact same problemsI was always happy with previous Linksys products, but this may have stopped that trend. I'll have to resort to dropping my loyalty for them and actually consider other brands when searching in this department

I'm a long-time user of D-Link routers. The past few years, I have been using a D-Link DIR-615 router. I use VoIP for my phone service and would configure the router to pass the SIP signals to my Trixbox server.My ISP recently significantly raised the speed of my Internet. I went from 8 Mbps to 107 Mbps (that's not a misprint! It is 107 Mbps down and 5 Mbps up.) When I would run a speed test, my speeds were consistently in the 60 to 70 Mbps range, which is not bad but not what I should be getting. When I connected the computer directly to the cable modem, bypassing the D-Link router, my speed would go up to around 111 Mbps. I decided it was time for a new router. I wanted one that had gigabyte Ethernet ports and could handle the higher speeds. I bought the D-Link DIR-825 router after reviewing several write-ups about it. I hooked it up and set up my port forwarding for my VoIP line. When I ran a speed test, my speed bumped up a little but I was never able to get more than about 80 Mbps. The slower speed didn't bother me at the time becuase I assumed that my cables, which were Cat 5, needed to be upgraded to Cat 6. I then noticed that my phones were not working. Everything I did to try to get them to work was unsuccessful. I did some research on the Internet about the D-Link DIR-825 and SIP. I found out that there were many people that were having problems getting the router to pass through the SIP traffic. I decided that I would have to send my DIR-825 back to Amazon and get a replacement since my business, [...], is dependent on my VoIP phones. I decided that I would go with the Cisco E 3000.Boy was I in for a shock! Before I had a chance to change my wires, I hooked up the Cisco E3000 and checked my speed. My speed was whizzing along at 111 Mbps! I picked up my phone and made a call without having to do anything to the router. Just to be safe, I later forwarded the correct ports to my Trixbox server just to be safe but I didn't have to do that to have the VoIP lines working out of the box. I would suggest that you forward ports required by your voip phone since not forwarding them may be unpredictable after some use.The bottom line is that the Cisco E3000 gave me a significant increase in speed over the D-Link DIR-825. Additionally, I could never get my SIP phone system to work on the D-Link router when it worked on the Cisco router without doing anything. In the future, I think I will stick with Cisco especially where speed and phone systems are involved. I love this router!