Review: Netgear DG834PN Wireless ADSL Modem Router with 4 Port 10/100 Switch

Iain Laskey looks at Netgear's latest ADSL Modem Router and is impressed

Product	DG834PN
Company	Netgear
Web	www.netgear.co.uk
Price	Around £100
We like	Facilities, easy set up, lights(!), stability
We don't like	Some backwards compatibility issues, lack of web executable filtering
Rating	9/10
Requirements

Within a surprisingly short length of time (although still longer than many would have liked) ADSL is now available pretty much anywhere and at sensible prices.

At the same time, more and more home users are starting to run small peer to peer networks at home. These were initially more inclined towards wired networks. However, one of the less obvious IT events in recent years has been the meteoric growth of wireless networking. To feed this rapidly growing combination of market trends, the usual suspects are now producing a steady stream of all in one solutions for people who want to share their broadband around the home safely and easily.

Features Galore

The Netgear DG834PN is the latest version of the DG834 and combines an ADSL modem with a wireless router and 4 port switch. In plain English, this plugs in your phone socket and allows one or more PCs to share the connection via either a wired or wireless link.

The modem part is ADSL2+ ready and should work with even the fastest ISP offerings out there which at the time of writing are around 12mbps in the UK. The setup wizard worked flawlessly and apart from the username and password, worked everything out for itself and had the DG834PN up and running in a couple of minutes.

As with most similar devices, further configuration is done via a web interface. The wireless section supports 802.11b and 802.11g as well as Netgear's own 802.11 Super G variant offering 108Mbps. The unit features 6 internal Antennas which constantly reconfigure themselves depending on what is connecting to the device and where. Lot's of buzzwords like RangeMax Smart MIMO (Multi-In, Multi Out) Technology abound in regard to this area. In theory, this helps cut down on dead spots which plague other wireless devices - those areas where the signal plummets for no obvious reason. It also extends the range quite markedly. I compared this to a non MIMO access point and found a definite improvement although the manufacturers claim of a 500% improvement in coverage is probably a little optimistic. If you tend to use a laptop and wander from room to room, this is a particularly powerful feature. The top of the unit features a rather funky blue light display which flashes away showing this in action. For those of a more restrained sort, this can be disabled. Security can be enabled as either WEP or WPA-PSK and you can enter a list of MAC addresses that are allowed to access the device for good measure.

The DG834PN also features 4 10/100 ports at the back for wired devices allowing a useful mix of wired and wireless. If you need more, you can always connect a separate switch or hub to one of these.

As noted, configuration is done via a web interface. The first thing you should do is change the default password! Once done, you can start twiddling. You can enable blocking of both keywords and specific sites and logging allows you to keep track of various selectable events. A major omission is the lack of filtering for Java applets, ActiveX and cookies.

The firewall allows you to set up port forwarding and new services can be added as required. These can be enabled at all times or according to a schedule. Personally, I'd go with the former. I can't imagine it makes much sense reducing your security as regular, predictable times. The DG834PN will get the correct time from an internally held list of servers or you can add your own. You can also add an email address to be notified with copies of the logs or a number of other events such as a DoS attack or a port scan.

The built in DHCP server can be configured to allocate IP addresses from a limited range and you can enter hard coded ones for specific MAC addresses. This can be particularly useful if you have a particular PC which you want to use as a web server. Once you know the IP address, you can enable port forwarding to send incoming page requests to that PC. It's also useful for remote control of a particular PC on your network.

You can allocate a particular PC to be a DMZ server. This allows you to allocate a machine to handle any undefined incoming data requests. This is not to be done lightly though as it's a security issue and shouldn't be done without careful planning and continued vigilance that the target PC is up to date and bullet-proofed from various attacks. You can also enable or disable the ability of the unit to respond to external ping requests. The DG834PN can also automatically update a dynamic DNS services as long as it's DynDNS.org. This allows you to cope with a constantly changing WAN IP address your ISP might allocate you, ensuring you can access the system remotely. Speaking of which, the configuration system can be accessed externally although wisely, by default, that is disabled. Finally, you can configure uPnP functionality and any static routing you may need.

As you'd expect, the unit is also firmware upgradeable and sets of settings can be saved to files allowing quick reconfiguration as required.

In Use

The DG834PN was very straight forward to set up and configure. The wizard and the web interface were all straightforward. The only real problem we had was that we couldn't get an old Netgear ME101 USB 802.11b wireless adaptor to talk to it. In theory they should be compatible but no amount of cajoling would get them on speaking terms. A visit to the Netgear web site confirmed this as a problem with both the ME101 and a number of newer wireless devices such as the DG834. Which was at fault? Difficult to say.

During the test period, the connection stayed up with no need to reboot the device. The ADSL line stayed on at all times and the one time I wasn't able to access the web interface turned out to be the PC, a reboot cleared it.

Conclusion

At a little over £100 there are certainly cheaper devices on the market. However, the MIMO technology works well, the configuration is comprehensive and you really do get everything you need in one madly flashing device complete with network cable, line filter and stand. If you want a simple all in one solution to your ADSL wireless and wired home networking needs, the DG834PN will do the trick.

 

Iain Laskey
See Iain's site at www.pcbookreview.com