SMC 7000WBR wireless broadband router reviewed

7004WBR Wireless Broadband Router Link

from SMC

Score: 3 out of 3

Review Type: Hands On

Reviewer: Chris Kaminski 

Date: May 24, 2001

Firmware: 1.92e

How did SMC fit such a full feature set into such a clean user interface?

The SMC 7004WBR is a wireless 802.11b broadband router with three LAN Ethernet LAN ports, a print server, and a serial port for a standard modem or ISDN modem. The installation and administration of the 7004WBR is streamlined and simple making setup and maintenance a snap. The manual (on cd) is very well written and covers installation and use in plain language. This is a wireless router that just about anyone should be able to install and use.

 

SMC chose to go with simplicity and ease of use instead of cramming their router full of features few people use. The 7004WBR does a good job exposing all of its functionality in a simple to read and understand user interface.

The wireless Ethernet network and the wired LAN Ethernet segment are internally bridged so that they appear to be on the same network. Computers on the wireless LAN can communication freely with computers on the wireled LAN with no restrictions (and the other way too).

The WBR wireless support is a SNAP to set up. The default configuration enables wireless support and sets the station ID to‘default’. The 7004WBR supports 64 bit WEP encryption but only supports a single 10 digit hexadecimal encryption key – enough for all but the most advanced users.

The serial port on this device can used with a standard dial-up modem or an ISDN modem to connect to the Internet. The 7004WBR does not have a ‘fail-over’ feature to switch to the serial port if the Ethernet port goes down, but it’s very simple to reconfigure the router. Note: This serial port makes the 7004WBR an ISDN router as well as a cable/DSL router.

The 7004WBR includes a standard parallel port on the back of the router. This printer port is accessible in Windows 9X, NT, and 2000 via a small driver included with the router. Additionally, it is accessible as a standard Linux/Unix remote printer with no additional software. Mac OSX should support this printer device as well but I have not tested it.

Virtual Server and Advanced Applications

Virtual Server or port forwarding is supported with a simple interface that includes ‘templates’ for all of the popular server applications. Advanced application support is good and comes with templates for Battle.net, DialPad, MSN Gaming Zone, PC-to-Phone, and QuickTime 4.

Firewall

The 7004WBR is a standard NAT based firewall capable of keeping out all but the most advanced hackers. It scored a –1 (zero is perfect) in our firewall tests in its default configuration. (see the test results)

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