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The Prestige 653HWI is aimed primarily at the home office and small business market and provides a number of unique features including a backup option that keeps you online even if your ADSL connection goes down.

The price is comparatively high but the router includes an internal ISDN BRI terminal adapter and during normal use the router constantly monitors the ADSL link. If this goes down it automatically dials the ISP number entered during installation and sets up a new connection. You can add a second number which will be used if the first one is busy or unavailable and it keeps an eye out for the primary ADSL link and reverts back to that when it comes up again.

Two models are available – one wireless-ready with a pair of fixed aerials and the model on review where this feature is optional and wireless connectivity is provided by a ZyAIR G100 PC Card slotted into the side of the unit. Don’t try using another manufacturer’s wireless card as our tests indicate that they are unlikely to work. Overall wireless performance was at best average although even with the lack of aerials we found transfer rates only dropped marginally as the distance between the notebook and router was extended.

Installation is a cinch as you point a browser directly at the unit’s default IP address where the well-designed web interface provides plenty of wizards and easy access to each function. Wireless security isn’t great as although you get 64 and 128bit WEP encryption, WPA has yet to be supported by ZyXEL. However, it does go some way to make up for this by supporting 802.1x authentication. You can create a local database of usernames and passwords which must be entered by wireless clients to gain access to the wired network or use a remote database stored on a RADIUS server.

ZyXEL scores higher for VPN support as the Prestige sports its own VPN accelerator chip for local hardware-based DES/3DES encryption for site-to-site and remote client VPN tunnels. Another feature larger businesses will approve of is bandwidth management as you can apply class priorities individually to the WAN, LAN and WLAN interfaces to ensure particular applications or traffic types get a guaranteed quality of service.

Verdict

Average wireless performance and no WPA support, but best suited to larger businesses looking for VPN acceleration, bandwidth management features and ADSL connection backup over ISDN.

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