Walk into any home office supply store and take a cruise up the hardware isle and you'll notice one thing that jumps out at you upon reaching the networking section; Linksys products. They dominate the racks, and for good reason! Linksys, building off of their success with the Model WAP11 and the BEFSR41 cable/DSL router comes the BEFW11S4 wireless AP, router and 4-port switch. The perfect marriage of 2 very successful products.

This unit took everything we could throw at it in stride. There isn't any environment that the BEFW11S4 will not thrive in! Home offices will love the ease of setup. Power users will enjoy it's speed and reliability. What makes this router/AP combo particularly nice is it's very understandable web based configuration. There are excellent security features built in, including 128bit WEP with the most current firmware. The unit also includes IP/MAC address filtering, NAT, static routing, DHCP server as well as a DMZ zone. All of which are described nicely in notes on the configuration page making it very easy for a novices and power users alike to take full advantage of these features. The most notable feature is the Price tag you'll find hanging on this. This is a LOT of product for under $250! You could easily spend twice that on two separate devices just to equal the options that Linksys offers in this one unit.

The BEFW11S4 is a tad on the bulky side, one of my only complaints ( I had to look pretty hard to find fault). Its dimensions are 7" wide by 8" deep, making its footprint almost a perfect square. Where I found it a little on the large side was its height. It stands a full 2.5" tall, which is better than twice that of some similar products offered by other companies. There are peg holes ready to accommodate another Linksys product stacked on top. There are no heat ventilation slots on top to make this possible. The front of the unit has a mess of LED's allowing the user to get a quick status report with simply a gaze. Many of its features are represented here, and we thought this to be a plus. It made diagnostics a snap!













Initial setup page is very informative and easy to read

The more advanced setup options are easy to follow. The screen provides a basic explanation of the specific features of the router. This goes a long way in helping those that do not understand the complexities of routing and basic security. You don't have to be incredibly savvy to get this device installed and secure on your network. I can almost hear the sigh of relief from remote office support personnel around the world. Support of IPSEC and PPTP allow versatile VPN options for the home office orientated user.

So how does it work in a demanding environment? Pretty well, we thought. Wireless capabilities are as good as it's sister product, the WAP11
I was able to get good signal strength from any location within our one acre, ultra-plush testing facility. Wireless speed significantly decreases with WEP enabled, perhaps a little more so than with other Wireless AP's we've tested. We here at cablemodeminfo.com put our demo units through a fairly grueling array of tests, as you may have read in previous reviews. One of our favorites is the line of sight streaming MP3 test. Its pretty amazing, listening to your favorite tunes while in a canoe 1/2 way across the lake! Our test unit met with a bit of unfortunate luck when a strong gust blew it off of the roof and down 12' to the ground. The plastic case cracked around the antennae, but the antennae itself held up strong. Personally, I prefer my hardware to be made of metal, but plastic is cheap and that is one of the factors that go into keeping the costs of this unit down to it's remarkable price.

Filters allow you to prevent certain PC's on your network from accessing the Internet connection.



Our complaints with the Linksys are few and far between. There was a little trouble accessing news groups when we first brought it on line. A few resets and reboots took care of the problem. I figured it was a fluke, but a quick search through usenet found a few threads from other people complaining about the same thing so we felt it worthy of mention. Gamers in particular may not like this product. We had a very hard time playing Half-Life/Counterstrike. The game kept hanging up for 7 or 8 seconds every few minutes. It seemed as though the firmware of the Linksys is not releasing the UDP packets fast enough. A red error will briefly appear in the upper right corner of the screen that says; "CL_FlushEntityPacket".

This issue became so annoying that playing the game at all was just no fun. Linksys worked with us to try and solve the problem by using older firmware versions to no avail. We did finally get over this hump by disabling the wireless capabilities via a radio button found on the front end of the setup screen (see setup screenshot above). Problem solved, but at the cost of our wireless capacities which is a problem in itself.

This is a flaw that will have to be fixed to satisfy many bandwidth hungry customers. Another thing that was a bit of a disappointment was the firmware upgrade feature that is built into the online setup. It didn't work with our browser. Luckily, firmware downloads from Linksys come as an executable which bypasses the problem, since they include TFTP program with the firmware.

My last complaint is a little nit-picky, but I didn't care for the way the console screens do not reflect changes made after hitting the "Apply" button. Instead, it refers back to a cached copy of whatever screen you were viewing before applying your changes. It made me 2nd guess if what I had just done took affect because the setting, be it a check box, radio button or text did not reflect the change. Call me a perfectionist, but I believe things should work 100% to be called "perfect"

Overall, the Linksys BEFW11S4 has excellent features and a price tag to match. With it's super-easy security options, 4-port switch and wireless capability, this router has a feature set that will make everyone happy.

- Price tag puts this on the top of the list in that category
- 4-port 10/100 switch for your home network backbone
- Speedy routing, Wireless 802.11b access allows roaming clients
- NAT supports 253 internal users, extensive routing features
- Supports IPsec Pass-Thru and PPTP
- 2 Dipole antennas for extended wireless ranges
- DHCP server for your entire network
- Free 24/7 tech support for North American customers
- 1-year limited warranty
- Setup is a breeze due to the informative web based interface.

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars. A 5 star rating would have happened if not for the gaming issue and UDP buffer errors when playing games like Half-life online.

Pros: All in one home networking device, fast, excellent price, platform independent, super easy setup, high availability broadband at a low price!
Cons: Online gaming requires the wireless features to be disabled. Bulky, plastic design is not exactly rock solid.

Linksys BEFW11S4
Current Street Price: $227.00

Linksys Headquarters
17401 Armstrong Ave.
Irvine, CA 92614
Phone: (949) 261-1288
http://www.linksys.com