Product Description

The Ultra RangePlus Wireless-N Broadband Router is really three devices in one box. First, there s the Wireless Access Point, which lets you connect to the network without wires. There s also a built-in 4-port full-duplex 10/100 Switch to connect your wired-Ethernet devices together. Finally, the Router function ties it all together and lets your whole network share a high-speed cable or DSL Internet connection.

Product Details

• Brand: Linksys
• Model: WRT160N
• Platform: Windows
• Format: CD
• Dimensions: 2.60" h x 9.60" w x 10.70" l, .62 pounds
• CPU: PowerPC G4 2.1 GHz
• Memory: 2000MB SDRAM
• Hard Disk: 1GB
• Processors: 1

Features

• Internet-sharing Router and 4-port Switch, with a built in speed and range enhanced Wireless Access Point
• MIMO technology uses multiple radios to create a robust signal that travels farther and reduces dead spots
• Much faster than Wireless-G, but also works great with Wireless-G and -B devices
• Wireless signals protected by wireless encryption, and your network protected from Internet attacks by a powerful SPI firewall

From the Manufacturer
From the Manufacturer The Ultra RangePlus Wireless-N Broadband Router is really three devices in one box. First, there's the Wireless Access Point, which lets you connect to the network without wires. There's also a built-in 4-port full-duplex 10/100 Switch to connect your wired-Ethernet devices together. Finally, the Router function ties it all together and lets your whole network share a high-speed cable or DSL Internet connection.

The Access Point built into the Router uses the very latest wireless networking technology: Wireless-N (draft 802.11n). By overlaying the signals of multiple radios, Wireless-N's "Multiple In, Multiple Out" (MIMO) technology multiplies the effective data rate. Unlike ordinary wireless networking technologies that are confused by signal reflections, MIMO actually uses these reflections to increase the range and reduce "dead spots" in the wireless coverage area. The robust signal travels farther, maintaining wireless connections much farther than standard Wireless-G.

With Wireless-N, the farther away you are, the more speed advantage you get. It works great with standard Wireless-G and -B equipment, but when both ends of the wireless link are Wireless-N, the router can increase the throughput even more by using twice as much radio band, yielding speeds far faster than standard Wireless-G. But unlike other speed-enhanced technologies, Wireless-N can dynamically enable this double-speed mode for Wireless-N devices, while still connecting to other wireless devices at their respective fastest speeds. In congested areas, the "good neighbor" mode ensures that the Router checks for other wireless devices in the area before gobbling up the radio band.

To help protect your data and privacy, the Router can encode all wireless transmissions with industrial-strength 256-bit encryption. It can serve as your network's DHCP Server, has a powerful SPI firewall to protect your PCs against intruders and most known Internet attacks, and supports VPN pass-through. Configuration is a snap with the web browser-based configuration utility.

The incredible speed of Wireless-N makes it ideal for media-centric applications like streaming video, gaming, and Voice over IP telephony, and gives you plenty of headroom to run multiple media-intense data streams through the network at the same time, with no degradation in performance. With the Linksys Wireless-N Broadband Router at the center of your home or office network, you can share a high-speed Internet connection, files, printers, and multi-player games, and run media-intensive applications at incredible speeds, without the hassle of stringing wires.

Customer Reviews

Beautiful looking and easiest set-up ever!
I noticed a lot of so so reviews and was wary until I read a professional review praising it's easy set up. I decided to go for it and boy am I glad I did. I happen to be a novice setting up PC related stuff but this router was cake to set up. Be forwarned; however, my intention was to simply set up wireless with encryption and nothing else. I had no desire to set up a full blown network with file and printer sharing. I simply wanted encrypted wireless for my xp windows pc and vista windows laptop in the house. I figure I can print stuff by using the pc with the printer or using a flash drive so I had no desire in oversteaping my technical boundries.

That being said... it was as simple as putting the disk in, following directions printing the encryption code and connecting the router. Easy as cake! I had more trouble configuring the recieving vista windows laptop and xp windows pc! Which wasn't that hard either. The router is connected to my windows vista desktop and my windows vista laptop and seperate xp windows desktop are recieving the signal. It was as easy as plugging in the code to the recieving laptop and pc.

The signal is always strong and no breaks in three weeks of constant use. Despite other comments, the signal strength is awesome even with the unit under a shelf. Unless you live in a 25 room mansion or set up the network wrong... you should have no problems. I have absolutely no complaints. The cherry on top is how awesome this router looks and with no antenna! You could easly hide this under a shelf but why would you want to! It's beautiful and you could use it as decoration! I admit, it is pricey but well worth the money in the headaches you will save setting it up and the aesthetic factor. Highly recommended especially for novices who simply want wireless in their house.

Works fine with Mac
For years, we have been happy users of a Netgear MR314 wireless router. But it didn't reach the farthest corner of our home. In looking at various routers, I found many mixed reviews for the newer Netgear routers, so decided to try the Linksys WRT160N. We use almost nothing but Macs in our home.

Setup: Forget the included CD that comes with this router, it is Windows only. It does have the User Guide as a PDF buried in one of the folders. But it is not much help.

Instead, just turn on the router, look for the wireless signal (or plug in directly using an ethernet cable), then use FireFox - the current Safari doesn't work and any changes cause a "server unexpectedly dropped connection" error.

Type: 192.168.1.1 in the browser, then user name "linksys" and password "admin" to get the web based setup menus.

From there, if you have any questions, click on the "Help" link for the individual pages. The help there is much better than in the User Guide.

This router does reach the far corner of our house, and is able to use WPA, etc.

I would have given the router 5 stars if the documentation had been better, and if the Mac had been included. (Even though it's really really simple to set up the Mac for wireless, it's still nice to be recognized.)

Fixed all my problems
FINALLY! A router that fixes all of the problems I was having. My old router, a D-Link Draft N had trouble connecting wirelessly with my Dell Laptop and my MacBook Pro. (Draft-N routhers don't all conform to the same standards.) It did work with my iMac wirelessly and it did OK with my wired connections.

So, I decided to tey an Apple Airport Extreme. It worked with all my wireless devices, but supprisingly did not do well passing HD TV Shows from my Media Center PC to my Xbox 360 over a wire!

So, after much research I decided to try this Linksys. Since it just hit the market, I figured it would have better Draft-N support.

So, with minimal configuration, this routher works with ALL my devices:

(I have it setup with WPA/WPA2 Wireless security.)

MacBook Pro (Draft-N Wireless)
Dell Vostro Laptop (Draft-N)
Apple iMAc (Draft-N)
Apple iPod Touch (Whatever wireless it uses...)
AppleTV (Wireless)
Nintendo Wii (Wireless)
2 Wired Windows PCs
Playstation 3 (Wired)
Xbox 360 (Wired)

Plus it has no trouble passing the HD TV shows from my Windows Media Center PC to my Xbox360.