Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Yes it does work as advertised with all the bells, whistles and dazzling lights, but some other wireless DSL routers have similar functionality and are priced for a little less.
After my old 2-wire DSL router died, I decided to buy this as a replacement. I couldn't wait for shipping. So I bought this DSL router from a local store. I've also been disappointed by other reviews on the internet for this DGND3300-100NAS. So I'm writing this review.
I mainly got this DSL router because of the energy star logo on the box. It lives in the temperature extremes of my garage, and some of the other DSL routers ran a little too hot. It works with my AT&T DSL. I've only been using it for the past day, and I have not had any connectivity issues. I'll update this review if the stability changes.
I never really had wireless connectivity problems with my old router, but the new wireless router now stays at 100% signal strength through out my house. My other router would sometimes go down to 90% at the farthest edge of the house. I set this router to "Up to 130 Mbps at 2.4 GHz. Neighbor friendly mode".
If you are familiar with configuring home routers through a web interface, this won't be much different. It's fairly easy to set up.
Compared to my attached 8 port gigabit switch and my 6 megabit DSL, the 802.11n standard isn't very interesting when compared to 802.11g. Downloading from the internet is limited to my purchased 6 megabit DSL, and wirelessly transferring files to my network attached storage is limited to the 100 Mbps limit of the integrated 4 port router. Though now my router supports 802.11n in case I ever get such a device that requires it. I'm glad it has the more secure WPA2-PSK, and there is a setting for both WPA2-PSK and WPA-PSK to be used at the same time, which is helpful for migrating the settings of your wireless devices.
It does have one minor annoyance. I'm not sure why it has so many bright blue blinking lights. It looks like a disco in my cabinet now. If your DSL modem will be in a bedroom you use for sleeping or any other room that you want to keep dark, this may be a concern for you.
One feature I missed from my 2wire DSL modem that I haven't found on the Netgear DSL modem is the Management Diagnostic Console. It's a hidden set of pages that provides error diagnostics and a pretty ASCII based bitloading graph. It was helpful to diagnose which radio frequencies were interfering with my DSL. In case you didn't know, telephone lines act like huge radio antennas, which interfere with the DSL signal. That's part of the reason why shielded coaxial cable from cable companies can have higher transfer speeds. Most people won't be fanatical enough to care about this missing diagnostic feature.
-------------- Review update December 22, 2009 --------------
It's been a few months since I reviewed this product, and I decided to go back to the latest 2wire modem from AT&T. After upgrading to the latest Netgear firmware level for this modem, I noticed the bandwidth rate became inconsistent. On several occasions the DSL Reports speed test reported that my 6Mbps DSL line (5.1 Mbps real bandwidth) went down to 3 Mbps occasionally, and on average the Netgear modem seems to be about 5-10% slower than my new 2wire modem. I'm dropping this review from 4 stars to 3 stars due to this new slowness. The sad thing is that the 2wire modem from AT&T is cheaper than this modem :-(
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NETGEAR DGND3300 RangeMax Dual Band Wireless-N Router with Built-in DSL ModemTwo simultaneous wireless networks deliver better connections with less interference, Greater bandwidth for high-quality media streaming and better online gaming, Push `N Connect securely connects devices at the touch of a button, Automatic Quality of Service (QoS) for reliable Internet, voice and gaming applications, For use with ADSL broadband (through the telephone line).
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