Product Reviews

Although most wireless networking systems are based on the 802.11g standard, which offers speeds of up to 54Mbit/s, we've seen systems from US Robotics and Netgear that are said to run at 100Mbit/s and 108Mbit/s respectively. KCORP's Gold Series range claims the same 108Mbit/s speed as Netgear's equipment, but at a far lower price.

We performed our tests using the Wireless Gateway Router and Cardbus PC Card together, but a PCI card for desktop PCs is also available for £46 including VAT. The PC Card was easy to install, and the included configuration utility made it easy enough to connect to a wireless

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network. The router is more remarkable, as it includes a huge number of features for such a well-priced model.

Installing the router is simple enough. It has five Ethernet ports and, once it is connected to a PC using a network cable, all its settings are available via its web-based interface. As well as the usual options for setting up a wireless network and DHCP server, this interface also allows you to set up a dynamic DNS client, which is useful if you don't have a static IP address. There are plenty of options for securing your wireless network, including WEP, WPA, WPA-PSK and 802.1x authentication.

The results of our speed tests were a little disappointing. When transferring a large file via FTP the router and PC Card averaged a transfer rate of 18Mbit/s. We're not surprised that this score is far lower than the quoted speed of 108Mbit/s, but it's disappointing that it didn't reach the impressive 28Mbit/s Netgear's high-speed equipment managed in our tests.

Overall, KCORP's 108Mbit/s networking equipment impressed us. Its performance isn't remarkable, but the sheer number of features packed into a router that costs just £80 makes it worth consideration nonetheless.