Netgear WGT624 router and WG511T PC Card review

Just when you thought wireless-networking specifications couldn't get any more complicated, along comes another vendor with yet another speed tweak and a heap of compatibility issues. D-Link's AirPlus enhanced 802.11b+ products offer 22Mb/sec, but only function at this rate with other compatible products. Employed by Netgear's latest WGT624 firewall gateway and WG511T PC Card, the Atheros chipset supports 802.11b/g operations and delivers a range of new features collectively gathered under the Super G banner. The channel-bonding feature is the most interesting, as it amalgamates two 54Mb/sec links to produce a single 108Mb/sec high-speed connection, although the Netgear implementation only functions with the company's own products.

The WGT624 adheres to Netgear's new design philosophy of rounded corners and a sleek silver chassis. It incorporates a four-port Fast Ethernet switch and WAN port for attaching an ADSL or cable modem for shared Internet access. Installation is simple, as you point a browser at the unit's default IP address and use Netgear's intuitive management interface. The WGT624 offers a good range of security features based around a stateful packet inspection firewall. It blocks all unsolicited inbound Internet traffic, but there's no interaction, so you can't add your own rules. Tools are provided to control more legitimate Internet access. You can block sites with specific URLs and use keywords to cover a range of sites. Services may also be blocked.

Notification is comparatively good for an SME device, as the WGT624 can email system logs at regular intervals and send out a warning mail whenever access to a site is blocked. Basic wireless security is provided by 64/128-bit WEP encryption, and a firmware upgrade not available at the time of writing will support WPA (Wi-Fi protected access) encryption. You're able to control access using lists of MAC addresses, which is made easier to set up by the interface providing a list of all connected clients along with their device names and MAC addresses.

The WG511T PC Card is well built, with the aerial firmly fixed to the card body, plus it's endowed with a pair of status LEDs. Netgear also includes a small utility that allows you to view and connect to available access points, save these settings as profiles and monitor signal strength and general throughput.

Quoted top speeds for every wireless standard so far have proved unachievable. Our real-world performance tests with the Netgear products showed that the claims for Super G channel bonding are similarly unrealistic. Copying a 585MB VideoCD file from a Windows Server 2003 system to a Pentium III/800 laptop delivered an average sustained speed of 39Mb/sec, while a 93MB mixture of documents and spreadsheets took 38 seconds to return only 19.6Mb/sec.

Although real-world performance for Super G is more hype than reality, it's still a huge boost over standard 802.11g operations. So if you don't mind standardising on Netgear wireless equipment, you'll find this wireless access point and PC Card combination delivers an impressive range of features for the price.

Author: Dave Mitchell