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It may have a lengthy name but at least you’re under no illusion as to what Belkin has on offer and this router does it all so elegantly. It’s one of the most compact units on review and build quality is also well above average, as its plastic shell conceals a weighty steel casing underneath.

Installation is simple enough and a brief encounter with Belkin’s wizard allows you to enter your ISP details and then you’re up and running. The browser interface is very well designed with plenty of help provided for all of the more complex settings. Firewall protection comes courtesy of NAT and stateful packet inspection but there are plenty of options for customization. Client IP filters control what services specific LAN users are allowed to access such as sending or receiving email, FTP or web browsing. You add the IP addresses of the PCs to be controlled, select the services to be restricted and for web site blocking add up to thirty URLs. A smart feature is rule scheduling as this determines what times and days each restriction comes into effect making it easy to apply a range of access policies. A log file is also maintained although this is very basic and doesn’t provide any details for events such as when a user has been denied access.

Belkin scores highly on wireless performance with this unit coming near the top of the class in all tests. We also noticed during the tests that wireless performance stabilised very quickly and didn’t fluctuate. Good wireless security is provided as along with WEP, Belkin was an early supporter of WPA and it was so friendly that this was one of few routers that was happy to work with the both the ORiNOCO and XP wireless client software on our test notebook.

MAC address filters are available for both wired and wireless connections and up to eight DMZs, or virtual servers, can be created for unrestricted incoming access to services behind the firewall such as web or email servers. VPN support is limited to providing a pass-through for this type of encrypted data but gateways can be used to open up specific ports for applications such as gaming, video conferencing or remote access programs.

Verdict

A great little router at a give-away price. It’s so simple to install and configure, delivers a wealth of security measures and comes up trumps with top-notch 802.11g wireless performance. Add all this up and the Belkin walks away with the Editor’s Choice award.

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