Product Reviews

You probably have a fair number of networked products - printers, games consoles and the like - that aren't wireless. With a product such as SMC's Wireless Ethernet Bridge, you can attach them to a wireless network.

SMC's large box comes with a single Ethernet port into which you plug your wired product. It converts the signal to wireless, in effect making your product work on your existing network. You can also use it as an access point or a repeater.

Configuration involves giving the Wireless Ethernet Bridge your network details. SMC provides a configuration CD, but this refused to connect

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to the bridge and we had to use the web-based management page instead.

This interface is a little easier to use and has a site survey feature that scans for wireless networks. Once complete, you can select your network, which is easier than having to remember your network settings and enter the SSID manually. Sadly, choosing a network doesn't prompt you for the security settings, and the Wireless Ethernet Bridge requires you to set these manually after rebooting.

This is easier said than done, as configuring security requires you to alter two different pages of settings. The first page lets you configure the WPA password, while the second page actually turns on security. This had us stumped for a while, as we couldn't work out why security was still off even though we'd entered the correct WPA password.

Once it was working we had no problems at all. Performance was slightly behind that of a Centrino notebook, but good enough for web browsing and sharing a printer.

The Wireless Ethernet Bridge's biggest problem is the price. It's expensive, especially as Buffalo's faster High Power Ethernet Converter, which has four Ethernet ports, costs just £10 more.