Worth it for me, but not everyone
Pros:
Worked in my situation where the signal was weak, but not a silver bullet
Cons:
Configuration was unnecessarily complicated, but at least the web-based interface made it doable.
The Bottom Line:
Not for network novices, but seems to get the job done. Handy indicator light to show that it's associated with your network.
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Overall Rating:
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Author's Review
At my house a desktop computer sits right on the fringe of the wireless network, and even with an updated antenna it would loose the connection every so often. Moving the desktop was out of the question, so the next step would be to run ethernet wire halfway to the computer and put an access point there.
Still running new wire would have been a problem so instead I thought about giving a wireless network repeater a chance. It just happened that this one was on sale for about $20 after rebate. Putting this repeater half way between the router and the desktop significantly improved the wireless signal to the point where the desktop never looses it anymore.
I have some major reservations about this device. First, the install CD would not work in Vista, but that's no surprise. To configure it, I connected the box to my laptop's ethernet connection and set the laptop to use a fixed ip address "close" to the one that the Belkin box starts with. In other words, the laptop was set to the address 192.168.2.99, while by default, the box is set to 192.168.2.254. To configure the box, all I had to do is go to the website http://192.168.2.254 and enter the network name and wireless key.
Also I changed the name of the network that the box was broadcasting. My wireless network uses WPA encryption and is named wlessnet, the router was able to associate with it and I set it to broadcast the name wlessnetrep encrypted using the same key. Doing this allowed me to make sure that the repeater was doing its job. Now, when the desktop is associated with the wlessnetrep network it has an excellent signal and is able to connect to the router. Still, getting the box configured took a good 45 minutes (first trying the CD which was junk)
