2Wire 2701HG-B DSL Modem & Router Gateway Review
INTRODUCTION
In the wee hours of the morning a power surge from a lightning strike took out the Ethernet port on my SpeedStream DSL modem. Really. The lights on it indicated that there was a DSL and Internet connection, but there was no Ethernet output. Therefore, there was no Internet input available to the router and network. (As a side note, both the modem and the router were plugged into a surge protector that was plugged into an APC UPS/surge protector. Perhaps the killing spike came through the phone line? Interestingly, nothing else was damaged).
My review on the 2Wire 2701HG-B DSL Modem-&-Router Gateway comes from my subjective viewpoint as a consumer and not from that of a refined and informed technogadgetroid – plenty of those types out there already.
Having gotten tired of the sporadic breaks in connectivity in my Belkin N-wireless router, I was also ready for a new router as well as for a DSL modem. That is why I was happy to learn about all the 2-in-1 solutions of router-and-a-modem. There were quite a few on the market and I did a little research. But when I asked my wife who was out running errands to stop by Best Buy to see what they had, they sold her one of these.
The box indicates that it is an AT&T brand (helps to assure me it will work with my AT&T DSL service), but it is made by 2Wire. It was priced $99 before tax, but they are going for 40%-60% less than that on eBay. But I was in a hurry to get back online so I decided that paying retail was OK.
When I first learned that it was made by 2Wire, I was a little concerned because of my previous unpleasant experience with Blockbuster’s 2Wire set top video-on-demand Internet box. However, with kudos on the box from the Best Buy salesgeek and with the box in hand and no other handy alternative, I press forward.
In resisting my temptation and tendency to write prose, I’ll just get down to brass tacks…
INSTALLATION
Taking it out of the box and hooking it up was pretty easy. There were 4 DSL phone filters included in the box, but I did not use them, and instead just kept the ones I already had.
Since it is a 2-in-1 unit, there is only one power supply, so I freed up an electrical plug. Plus, there is no longer any need for a patch cable to connect the router to the modem.
First you connect your computer to the modem/router (“gateway”) with the patch cable. So far, so good, but setting up was not as straight-forward as I had expected. I guess that plug-n-play is not here yet, so you still have to use an installation CD.
I tried my best to follow the instructions and not let what I know about good user-experience-design get in the way. That is, I found their process to be a little clunky, and not intuitive. And, their navigational cues were not clear. Additionally, their little installation wizard did not work in my FireFox browser. After several failed attempts at launching the CD, I decided to try it with Internet Explorer for just-in-case. And that did the trick.
Back to the non-intuitive navigation in their installation wizard: a brief call to tech support to speak with Nadeem on the other side of the planet quickly provided the insights I needed to complete the task.
Being that I am not any kind of network security expert or authority on the different kinds of wireless authentication protocols, I stuck with the default, which I believe is WEP-open or something like that. Instead of letting me designate a cool passphrase for my network guests to connect with, it simply requires a 10-digit number (use the default one stamped on the side of the unit, or easily choose your own).
COMPUTER CONFIGURATION
When turn on your computer, it will see the wireless network. When you try to connect, it will prompt you for the authentication code you designated on the unit. It was very easy for all my computers except the one I used to configure the gateway. What happened was that I had changed the authentication code in the gateway after I had connected to it wirelessly, so instead of being prompted to enter the new code or receiving a rejection method, I simply received a worthless Windows notice that it could not connect. But after digging around in Control Panel and the Manage Networks option, I was able to delete the original profile so that received the needed challenge dialog for the new connection.
USAGE AND PERFORMANCE
I am very happy to say that I can now stream my favorite radio stations or videos or engage in chats or conversations without being dropped every few minutes like the Belkin N Wireless router did. The power/range of the transmission does seem a little weaker than before, but I do recall a transmitter power designation setting in the router management interface that I think can be bumped up one more notch.
CONCLUSION
Though only time will tell how good of a product the 2Wire 2701HG-B Gateway is, for now it receives my preliminary thumbs-up.
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