Belkin WIRELESS ACCESS POINT ( F5D7130 ) Review

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(More customer reviews)First of all, the installation of this product is relatively straightforward but the default factory settings will leave your system open (unsecure). In these times of increasing cases of hacking and with more and more wireless products being available, security is a major concern and you should make your first assignment to secure your system from attacks.
There are several options available for securing your connection that include eliminating the broadcast of your wireless network name (SSID), setting up encryption manually or automatically (either 64 or 128 bit) by using an optional passphrase and filtering out MAC addresses.
Now, setting up the Wireless Access Point is not as straightforward as it seems, and here's where the documentation should be a bit clearer. The WAP setup has a web-based interface that requires an Internet browser such as MSIE or Netscape.
The default IP address (and URL) of the WAP is 192.168.2.254 with a Class C subnet mask (255.255.255.0), you could care less about it, but it is very important to know. In order for you to configure the WAP, you must set up your PC IP address (either the wireless client or the host PC that you will use to connect to the WAP) on the same subnet as this default address on the WAP. In my case, my DSL router belongs to a 192.168.1.xxx subnet, so I had to change my address temporarily to a valid one(192.168.2.100) as explained in the manual. Fortunately, the WAP setup allows you to change the WAP's default IP address to suit your needs.
About applying firmware updates:
Problems arise when you apply new firmware, a common procedure that everyone should do when acquiring these kind of equipment, but should be very careful when doing so.
Firmware updates bring improvements, fixes and new features to your WAP and keeps it up to date. The problem I had was that the firmware changed the WAP's default IP address to 192.168.2.1, something I found out after researching networking.belkin.com.
The second issue was that my security settings were erased and my saved settings were not completely recovered, apparently because of some format compatibility issue not documented anywhere. Luckily, I put everything on paper and I was able to set everything back the way it was but believe me, looking at a "page not found" error after a firmware update is not for the faint of heart.
Now about client connectivity. I own a DSL router connected to a simple 8-port 10MBps hub. I connected my WAP in one of the ports on the hub. My laptop (with a PCMCIA wireless card) immediately found the WAP. Reception should be fine if your wireless clients reside across open areas. Closed rooms are another story. In my case, although my bedroom (closed area) is much closer in distance to the WAP, there was no reception initially and noise was higher than in the living room (open area). For this reason I had to place the WAP in a more direct line of sight to my bedroom and in a higher position to allow for better reception. This required a longer patch cable than the 6-inch UTP cable included with the WAP.
In summary, if you are familiar with networking PCs and know how your network is set up then you shouldn't have any problems installing and using this product, otherwise I'd recommend bringing someone with networking experience to help out.

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