Belkin High-Speed Mode Wireless G Router

Off to See the Wizard

Belkin has quite simply the most thorough setup wizards (both Windows and Mac versions) we've ever seen on a Wi-Fi router. They cover everything from hooking up the cables, to understanding indicator lights, to getting connected and configuring basic router parameters. And the printed manuals are just as thorough. There's even a sticker over the router ports warning you to run the setup wizard before connecting any cables. Not to mention a printed sheet of basic setup info for a couple dozen major ISPs, and prominent placement of the 24/7 tech support phone number at every turn, something most vendors try everything to hide.

Despite Belkin's best efforts, however, the setup wizard falls down in one place, it assumes that you are connected directly to the Internet from your current computer, and then tries to detect/copy your connection information that way. If you are replacing an existing router in your network (and thus don't have direct modem connection info in your system), you'll go through hoops with the wizard, and then just wind up at the standard Web-based setup utility anyway, so you might as well start there in the first place. Something we wish the manual or wizard had stated up front.

Happily, the Web-based utility is clear, and has context-sensitive help buttons that call up pop-up info screens. To get things set up, you really only need to configure two things, the WAN connection, plus the wireless parameters. The WAN screen offers a helpful guide to the various options:

Under the Wireless heading, you'll want to configure the Channel/SSID page, and turn on WEP or WPA encryption on the Security screen. Be sure to choose 125Mbps High-Speed mode operation to get the most out of your system. (assuming you have appropriate adapters on your computers).