Written By:
Date Posted: September 18, 2002

In today's world of increased computer use, households on average now have at least 2 computers. Internet access has almost become a necessity, and broadband is now more popular than ever. Yet how is one to distribute a connection between the computers in one's household? The simple answer is to get a router and use ipmasq to create an internal network. A myriad of companies have come out with routers - Linksys, Dlink, Netgear, etc. but have their routers been safe? Nexland steps up to the plate, proudly providing the ever-popular Alienware with routers, and the claim that their routers are in fact secure and safe.

The router itself is unlike any I have seen as of yet in its aesthetic design.

On the back, there are 4 dip switches (very small switches originally more commonly seen on older motherboards for settings,) that allow a user to clear the memory if positioned in the correct sequence. There have been times in which a user may forget a password, but may need to change his settings - this type of failsafe is very important in that case, since the reset button does not clear the routers' memory.

There is then 1 port for the WAN - Wide Area Network, the connection to the Internet. Therefore the 4 ports on the back of the router are the LAN - the Local Area Network. Finally there is a reset button, and the power source.

Let's see what else comes with the router:

- 6.5 feet of Category (CAT) 5 cabling
- A CD with the Manual, Utilities, and Internet Explorer 5.5
- A Printed Manual
- The power adapter
- A Quick-Start Guide

The major features include:

- Up to 253 clients on the network
- Solid firewall protection
- A built in 4 port 10/100 switch to connect computers or hubs
- Over 8 Megabits of High-Speed Bi-Directional Throughput
- Gaming optimizations for multi-player games behind NAPT
- Easy configuration via web
- IPsec Pass-Through for telecommuters
- Dynamic DNS capabilities for web servers
- DMZ Host capabilities

Some of that stuff might have gone over your head - that's perfectly fine. The first thing I want to point out is that the ports on the back of the unit are part of a switch, not a hub. What's the difference? Both switches and hubs allow for a connection to be repeated and re-distributed to other computers. There are 2 standards for speeds - which you have is dependant upon your network cards' capabilities: 10baseT and 100baseT. The 10 and 100 represent how many Megabits can be transferred per second. Please do not confuse a Megabit with a Megabyte.

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