Anthony Caruana07 May 2008, 7:25 AM
The LevelONe WBR-6000 is a a router that offers excellent wireless range.
Shunning the normal port and antenna at the back and lights on the front design that is common with most wireless routers, the WBR-6000 delivers four 10/100 ports and wireless access using 802.11b, g and Draft 2.0 N.
Installation was the usual plug-and-play arrangement we’re accustomed to. There’s no special client software to install. Just plug the router into the power and it’s ready to use. For that reason, we’d suggest not plugging your internet connection in until after it’s configured as it starts as an open wireless access point with no protection. The Quick Installation Guide informs you on plugging in the power and an Ethernet cable, starting a browser and then entering an IP address to access the router’s configuration tool. A more complete user guide is included as a PDF on a CD. Our main setup hassle was that the default username and password for accessing the router’s configuration were buried on the back of the Quick Installation Guide and took us a few minutes to find.
The setup wizard was easy to follow and provided automatic setup for Optus Cable, BigPond Cable (with the heartbeat) and ADSL. However, there was no guidance on setting up Wi-Fi, although the fields on the configuration screen were clearly labelled. One of the LEDs on the front panel, labelled Key, is lit when the WLAN is secured, providing an easy visual cue that wireless is secured.
WEP, WPA and WPA2 were all supported and we were able to connect both Macs and PCs (running Vista) without difficulty. MAC address filtering is available, as is the ability to disable SSID broadcasting. The router’s firewall provided the ability to block unwanted traffic both coming in and leaving your network and protection from a Denial of Service, or DoS, attack by stopping all network activity for a time that can be set by the user. It’s hoped that by closing the network during a DoS attack the would-be hacker will give up rather than persist with trying to attack a ‘dead’ connection.
Once the WLAN was secured we were able to connect and use the connection without any problems. We set the WBR-6000 to use 802.11b, g and n to ensure maximum compatibility with different devices on our LAN. There’s no 802.11a support, so you can only use the 2.4GHz frequency range. There are some advantages to having support for the 5GHz frequency as it is less likely to suffer from interference by cordless phones or microwave ovens.
Once in operation, we found that wireless range was excellent. We were able to sustain a strong connection over 20 metres away — losing only one of five bars of signal strength.
One place where the WBR-6000 excelled above other routers was the ease with which it was possible to configure Quality of Service, or QoS. Other routers use different terms for this feature, which allows you to prioritise specific traffic on your LAN. For example, if you use a VoIP service, you can select VoIP from a drop-down list and enable prioritisation so that any VoIP data packets are routed with a higher priority to others. That way, call quality can be maintained when you’re downloading a large file or carrying out some other network-intense activity.
Wired connection worked as expected, and all ports had automatic uplink detection. That meant that we could connect another hub to any port in order to expand our network, without having to get a crossover Ethernet cable.
There’s a lot to like about LevelOne’s WBR-6000. There’s 802.11 support and setup was very straightforward. On the other hand, the lack of Gigabit Ethernet and 5GHz frequency support may be a compelling issue for some. For us, Gigabit Ethernet is increasingly becoming a must-have rather than a bonus.