Routers For Dummies

I got a new Netgear DGDN3300 RangeMax Dual Band Wireless-N router on a recommendation from the local geek at Best Buy. It was $149, perhaps a bit expensive, but it was there. He might have recommended it because it was the most expensive one, but he did say the Dynex choice was a POS, and this would work better than the other one they had.

I’d read about it online, and it was one that got good reviews, so I grabbed it.

I unpacked it, got my credentials and the WEP key from my current router and went to get set up. There are no instructions in the box, just pieces and parts, a warranty card, and a CD. I find that annoying since I can configure the router, and most set up programs are junk, but in this case I gave it a try. I guess I could have just plugged it in and tried a few IP addresses to connect, but I didn’t.

Here’s what I did:

• Plug the router into power
• Plug an ethernet cable into my laptop and the router
• Put the CD in.

The setup program, which is a flash based on, then walked me through about 8 wizard steps. Each of these steps had text on the screen and a little animated image that showed where things go. The steps were:

• plug a phone cable into the wall
• plug the same phone cable into the router
• plug the yellow ethernet cable (provided) into the router
• plug the yellow ethernet cable into your computer
• plug the power adapter into the wall
• plug the power adapter into the router
• check the lights
• enter DSL credentials
• pick a wireless region
• pick a wireless type (5GHz or 2.4GHz)
• pick a wireless network name, security type, and passphrase

All in all, I was amazed how dumb’ed down they made this. Slow for me to get going, and I have some manual configuration to do, like fixing my WEP key, but overall this worked well, smooth, and I’m live.

And I’m wired again with the desktop, which means I have no excuse not to move to the new machine and go through the install/setup hassles. Maybe I can get rid of all the rest of these:

The connection worked initially, but once I started to reconfigure the wireless connection, it stopped working. A call back to Qwest helped me figure it out, no thanks to the CSR.