Cisco-Linksys WET11 Wireless Ethernet Bridge

If you have a wireless router and need to connect wired devices at a distance, without running a long cable, this product provides the answer--maybe the only answer. It has an antenna to connect to the wireless router and a LAN port that behaves like one of the wired LAN ports of the router. You can connect a single device such as a printer or computer, or you can connect another router or switch and create a local wired network extension to which you can connect multiple wired devices. Given the street price of multi-function routers, the price of this wireless bridge is higher than I'd expect, but I figure that's likely because the volume of production is much smaller. I gave it four stars rather than five because setting it up is a little tricky, but once it is properly configured, it works very well.

This device is great in concept, and this particular model was an excellent choice a couple of years ago. The concept is still great, but there are better choices out there than this one. The main problem is that the technology is out of date. Being purely 802.11b, this still runs at 11Mb/s best case, and maybe half that speed in actual use. There are other 802.11a and 802.11g options that are several times as fast. Other specific issues I had with this model, and the reasons I say it's quirky, are: a) It couldn't connect to my access point unless the access point broadcast its SSID. If both devices have the same SSID this shouldn't be necessary, and is less secure. b) If you want to use a channel other than 6, you need to change it from infrastructure to ad-hoc mode, change the channel, and then change it back to infrastructure more. c) It couldn't connect to my access point if the access point was in "mixed 802.11b/g" mode. I had to switch the access point to 802.11b only. If I were to buy another wireless bridge I'd get one that's 802.11g compatible.

After reading the specs on the Linksys WET11 and downloading the user manual from their website, I decided to purchase a unit. I am very pleased with this product and it works as I had expected. Setting it up was a breeze. The antenna is screwed on to the right side of the unit (which is surprisingly small). Plug in the power supply. I then hooked it up to a PC laptop with the supplied RJ45 cable and ran the setup program. I have an SMC Barricade 7004AWBR router with a built in wireless access point. The WET11 was configured to use the same SSID and channel as the SMC and then set to DHCP. All done. The unit can then be connected to your ethernet device in one of two ways. One is directly to your desktop or laptop, for example. The other is to hook it up to a hub or switch and from there wire it up to one or more desktops or even laptops. There is a switch on the unit to select which mode will be used. While I do have a wireless card for the laptop, it's nice to have the flexibility of going wired for desktops. The icing on the cake is that I now have wireless connectivity for my Mac Beige G3. I've been looking for a solution and the WET11 solves it. Before, I had to run a long RJ45 cable to it from the router. Now I can connect it to the WET11 through either of the two options mentioned and get on the web as before, except it's now wireless. One tip - set the Mac to a manual IP address. For some reason, setting the Mac for DHCP does not work. For me a very minor issue. I have not seen any dropped connections for the few days I've had it and it sure runs cool. All in all, it has met my expectations, perhaps more so with the Mac. For the money, I see no comparable product out there. Check it out.

I have broadband internet access in my upstairs bedroom. I wanted the kids to be able to access the internet too. Their computers are downstairs. Since I'm renting this house, I didn't want to tear into the walls to install new wiring. I got a Linksys WAP11 (access point) for upstairs and a WET11 for downstairs, and now I can hook several computers (via a hub) to the WET11, and they can all get internet access. This saved me a little bit of money, since I didn't need to get a wireless PCI card for each computer downstairs. The setup was fairly easy. The Linksys lets you configure WEP encryption with a passphrase instead of the usual long string of hex characters. That's convenient if both your client and access point are both Linksys (which they are, in my case). I'm sure Linksys likes that I have an incentive to buy more Linksys devices for the convenience of setup. You can configure the device with a web browser. One annoying thing is that if something goes wrong, you don't get internet access, so you can't use the web browser to go into the WET11 to fix the configuration. You have to go back to the Linksys CD, which contains a setup program. I've heard that the WET11 can also be used with a TiVo. It's something I want to try but right now the arrangement we have puts the TiVo and the computers downstairs far away from each other, so I don't have this set up. I find the Linksys custom setup app pretty annoying. Instead of using standard Windows widgets, it has its own "pretty" window with its own nonstandard titlebar, nonstandard radio buttons, etc. They didn't implement all the shortcuts (shortcut keys, cut/paste, etc.), so it's really a pain to use their program. To make it look k00l they gave up consistency and usability. :-(

Apparently, this product was shipped 'used' meaning that it did not come with a disk, instruction manual or cable. I returned it. I still don't know if I got my money back for it, including postage. My advice is to go to a store for computer accessories, it can easily be exchanged or returned. The wireless router that I ordered in conjuction with this from a different vendor was easily handled, no questions asked. They gave me a credit right away.

The device has the equivalent of a car's idiot light on the side (a led with WAN next to it) that lights up when you connect to an access point. The problem is that if it's off or the signal is intermittent, you can't tell how strong it is. This means you can't move the device around to get a better signal. It's either on or off. The device could be falling back to a slower speed because of poor signal strength. The only way to know is to go into the configuration utility and force it to a higher speed. There are rumors on the net of an older firmware that had a signal meter, but going back on a firmware revision sounds like a desperate measure. The device also lacks the ability to tell you what SSIDs (wireless networks) are available. If you misspell the ID when you're configuring it or you're not exactly sure of the spelling you may have a hard time locating it. Connecting to the device to configure it is not easy. You have to manually set your IP address to the 192.168.1.xxx network and run their installation software to discover it or connect directly to it's default address at 192.168.1.225. A USB connection would make it easier. My experience with tech support at Linksys was not pleasant. The tech incorrectly told me that the product did have a signal meter before I bought it. He also seemed to have little understanding of what the product actually did. On the plus side, the antenna works fairly well and is removable in case you want to purchase an external model.

I had been using a Cisco PCMCIA card to connect my laptop to the home wireless network (Linksys wireless router). When I added a few new machines, it made sense use a hub, and then connect across a bridge. Despite the "standard", it seems like vendor X 802.11b hardware doesn't want to talk to vendor Y. I had a D-Link wireless access point--that should have done bridging--and no about of grief could get it to work right. Yes, I checked the ESSID, channel, MAC addr, etc.... The WET11 plugged in, turned on, and worked without any effort. I've got two Linux boxes hooked into a cheapo-hub, the hub connects to the WET11, and that gets me to the nearby wireless router. So -- general recommendation -- don't mix 802.11b vendors if you can avoid it. The Linksys stuff has worked for me (using both Linux and Windoze) without too much hassle. I'm happy with the performance, and the price is OK. I'm only giving 4 out of 5 because Linksys is probably at least partially behind the inter-vendor problems.

Yes, it works for Xbox Live (the primary reason I purchased it). However, as my friends and I found out this weekend, system link does not work through the WET11 (or at least not the games we tried - Ghost Recon and Halo). This has been verified by several websites around the internet. I'm disappointed. It works great for Live, so I'll keep it if I can't convince Linksys to give me a refund, but not being able to play system link when my buddy comes over is a bummer.