Cisco-Linksys Wireless-G Cable Gateway (WCG200)

I found this router easy to install and use, although the instructions could be misleading for the less experienced. It took Comcast far longer to set up thier part than it did for me to set up mine. This unit replaced a Linksys wireless-G router (WRT54G) and an older Motorola cable modem that was constantly dropping my connection in the middle of a download. I've had no such problem with the new setup. I've had this model running for over two weeks and the modem has not dropped its connection or reset once, contrary to some of the other reviews I've read. The security features are an improvement over my old WRT54G and the ability to turn off the broadcast of your SSID is a very welcome addition. The wireless range is good with the stock antenna, and mine is located inside a 19 inch steel equipment rack in the farthest back corner of my house. I purchased the high-gain antenna kit and antenna stand, which allows me to set the antenna outside of the rack up to 6 feet away from the router, but I have not installed them so far. Note that you will lose some signal strength from the six foot antenna stand cable and connectors, but a net gain in signal strength can be achieved by better antenna placement. (In my case this means outside of the steel rack.) Also this device uses SMA antenna connectors, not the TNA connector that Amazon suggests under the "Better Together" section at the time of this writing. Based on my experience with this product so far, I would very much recommend it.

This product serves its purpose. It's not out of this world, but usable. The real negative is it drops unexpectedly every now and then, but I find if I turn it off and back on once a day or so, it helps. Range is decent for the price. Easy to setup and enable some security to prevent my neighbors from "borrowing" my wireless connection.

i have been using the wcg200 v2 for just under 2 1/2 years now. i find it easy to configure, stable, and a great value. i didn't want to mess with seperate router, modem, and switch power packs and the stack of boxes and this unit consolidated all of them. i have comcast cable and have only had to power cycle the unit a few times each year, not much at all say maybe 3-4 times and it was as easy as removing the power cable going into the unit, waiting a few seconds and plugging it back in. i suspect the need for power cycling of the unit was due not to the stability of this unit but rather changes and downtime on comcast's side. i have two minor issues with the wcg200. first, the wcg200 uses firmware that is not flashable (you can't upgrade it) and linksys provides no firmware updates for the unit. second, this is a really minor one but would have been nice to have this feature working, it is the System Up Time field under the status section on the main web page for the wcg200. The problem is that after 8 hours of uptime the unit resets the uptime to zero hours and begins counting again up to the 8 hour mark before reseting the counter again. This means it is impossible to track how many days or months the unit has been up for. note also that any dropped connections are not always the result of the wcg200 unit but rather the wifi nic in the client systems. for example, for a long time i thought the wcg200 was causing my pc to loose wireless connectivity to the wcg200 and would power cycle the unit to fix the problem. however, over time i discovered it wasn't the wcg200 but rather the wifi network card i use. i use the linksys WUSB54G wifi adapter / NIC and it is responsible for frequently dropping the connection to the wcg200. i am now looking to replace the WUSB54G adapter with a Hawking HWU8DD adapter to solve this problem. so for anyone saying the wcg200 is no good, then check into the wireless adapter you are using with your pc as well as the reliability of your ISP before trashing the wcg200. *** UPDATE 10/24/2008 - I have noticed that my disconnects with wcg200 gateway is always wireless disconnects while the wired connections to other PC always remains accessible and functioning. The problem I have identified is isolated to the wireless aspect of this gateway. Furthermore, the disconnects appear to be directly related to the number of open TCP connections established and large amounts of download/upload data over the wireless connection. *** UPDATE 11/2010 - This gateway is still functioning (albeit with a gateway reboot every day or every couple of days). I have grown tired of my wireless connection dropping out while using this gateway and having to restart the gateway each time this happens. The wireless connectivity on this router stops functioning and is directly related to the amount of traffic processed. Don't expect to be able to watch YouTube videos with this gateway as after several hours of YouTube video downloading it will usually require another restart to restablish wireless connectivity. I had finally had enough and broke down to invest in replacement equipment. I switched over to the Linksys CM100 cable modem and Linksys WRT54GL and installed third party firmware on the router. My wireless connection from PC to router is now extremely stable and I haven't had any disconnects or require any reboots since installing it about 2 weeks ago.