Netgear WGE101 802.11g Wireless Ethernet Bridge (WGE101NA)
by Netgear
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List Price: Category: CE See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Netgear WGE101 802.11g Wireless Ethernet Bridge (WGE101NA)
Customer Review: Finally, a product that works--
Summary: 5 Stars
I have an old computer that I was trying to hook up to a wireless network. After two trys with PCI cards (only to find out that my computer bus was too old to be compatible) I resorted to buying a wireless bridge to plug in to my ethernet port--it works! Just a warning--get the same brand bridge as you have in the wireless router to make things easy! I got a different bridge because it was cheaper and it was more difficult to set up and broke in two days (Also Amazon.com had a good price and there return policy is good if you have a problem--most other stores charge a restocking fee--I found that out the hard way)Customer Review: Great Bridge......After you update the firmware.
Summary: 4 Stars
I use this bridge connected to a linksys switch for my Xbox, Playstation 2, and my ReplayTV. When I first purchased the bridge I had a hard time getting it to link to my roommate's wireless router (Buffalo Wireless). It was seeing great signal strength, but wouldn't connect to it. I went online and got the latest firmware for the bridge, and in 10 seconds had it working great. It has pretty good speed, and I don't get any lag (usually) when playing online games. I still think it's a little pricey for what you get though, but that's just me. Customer Review: Works great--but only after lots of configuration/support
Summary: 4 Stars
I decided to piggyback off the wifi signal of a neighbor. Out of the box, the WGE101 refused to connect to the signal. After a couple of calls to NetGear support in India, a firmware upgrade solved the problem. But then I tried to connect the WGE101 to my NetGear wireless router/switch (the WGE101 does not have a switch so it can be directly connected to only one device), nothing connected to the switch could connect to the Internet. After a few more calls to NetGear support, turning off DHCP and manually configuring the IP settings seemed to solve the problem. Later, I decided not having DHCP was a hassle, so I turned DHCP back on, and everything seems to be working fine.
The WGE101 is a new product, so if you're a newbie who wants to plug-n-play, you'll be disappointed. But if you're a little bit technical (e.g., you know how to configure IP settings and update firmware), and you don't mind having to spend a few hours on the phone with technical support and messing around with settings, then the final result will be worth it.
Customer Review: Check the MAC Address
Summary: 4 Stars
I purchased this product to re-connect my wired network to my wireless network. I have a Linkys WET54G which I moved to another location in the house. To make a long story short, I found that the WGE101 MAC address was being incorrectly reported by the setup software it comes with. I finally got it to connect with WRT54G after I put in the MAC address it was seeing. Works great now that its set up and connected.Customer Review: Decent speeds in mixed mode
Summary: 5 Stars
I already own the WGT 624 that goes b/g/super-g, and my laptop was just b, but I bought for the future when I got a g-bridge (mainly for my xbox).With the router setup as b and g, I got throughput speeds of 2.5 megabytes a second from a different floor of the house from bridge to router, which is about 20Mbps.
I've always bought netgear products and I like the whole slick-silver design, and the ability to stack the units on top of each other. I already own the FS608 and could stack the bridge ontop of that.
My only problems with the router was how to add it to the access list. I figured out that you do NOT add the bridge's mac address, but instead any device that connects through the bridge to the router... so if you have 15 computers being bridged to the router, you have to add all 15 mac addresses to the router... that sounds like somewhat of a pain, but if you think about it, your network is that much more secure...
The reason I say that is, suppose you had a bridge connecting to an accesspoint to further spread signals within your network... well by having to add every mac address that goes through the bridge, you are individually authorizing everyone, instead of just allowing the bridge itself.
Anyways... I feel it's a good product and will continue to buy from netgear.