Surf the Light Webdango (Netgear DM602BGR LAN/USB ADSL Modem)

Member Name: SlyClone2k

Product:	Netgear DM602BGR LAN/USB ADSL Modem
Date:	27/01/04 (1671 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Nice Shape, Easy To Configure, Adequate Web Browsing

Disadvantages: Doesn't do P2P, Not very good for online games, Very poor customer support

**To Infinity And Beyond**

The DM602 is a lovely looking piece of kit. It sits with pride of place atop the little black box that powers my speakers. Stands you see, upright, despite its bevelled edges, with the special aid of the stand that comes with it. Silver and bevelled it sparkles with the light of the sun filtering through the blinds behind it. It?s very reminiscent of the hull of the star ship Enterprise (the TNG one) as it flies through a supernova (or some more plausible sci-fi occurrence!).

I guess you could say it looks nice.

Looking good is all very pleasant, but on the whole if I want to look at something pretty when momentarily glancing from my PCs screen it?ll be at a nice flower. Or something.

The lights are evenly spaced on the front, and the orange and green lights blink on and off to let you know (having read the manual) what status your connection is in.

So what then does the Netgear DM602 Broadband Router/Modem do for me, or you? That information would also be useful!

**Time To Get Going**

Having taken receipt of my router I had become somewhat skilled in the art of routers as my very first router had been a borrow. The skill I picked up setting up my first router went a long way to helping me with the second. Or they would have done if the DM602 hadn?t been so easy to configure.

It is you see. Plug it in using one of the two ways, Ethernet or USB v1.1 or even plug it in using both at the same time! I?ll assume you can work out that it runs of the mains and that you?ll have plugged it in!!

Ethernet is likely to be the more tricky of your configuration options, it will mean you also need an Ethernet card in your PC (available from around £8), and also TCPIP configured in your Network Connection settings. On the plus side the pocket guide that comes with your new router carefully explains how you need to go about doing this.

USB is plug and play like it

should be. Connect up the router to the PC and bosche Windows does its thing, at least WindowsXP does. But if it doesn?t the drivers are available on the CD that also comes with it. Handy that!

Having connected your router to your machine you?ll need to connect your broadband line to your router. Well that?s simple enough. The DM602 takes the leads, and even if it didn?t it comes supplied with its own. You?ll also get a shiny new ADSL filter. Very generous of Netgear that!

So there you have it. PC ? Router ? ADSL Line

**Changing the Nuts And Bolts..**

But that?s not it is it? Oh no. You?ll never get quick and easy web browsing that way. You?ll also need to configure your router with the appropriate information. Well you?ll already know that your Router has an IP address of 192.168.0.1, it?s the default gateway [1]. Having punched that address into your web browser (I.E. or Opera etc) you?ll open up the Netgear User Interface.

In its most simple you can adjust the basic router settings with your ISPs DNS [2] servers, your username and password. The DM602 has a little button that you can press that will automatically adjust the VPI settings. You don?t even need to know they are. Wow talk about user friendly.

In the advanced you can configure allsorts of things, each of them just as easy as the basic settings, and with a little help in a pane that lies to the right of the setting you?re going to change!.

Such settings as DHCP (a method which automatically assigns your computer a number that makes it unique from other computers (IP Address)) the plus side of this is that you barely need to configure the parts of TCPIP mentioned earlier, you can go on adding machines and the router will just automatically do all that for you.

One of the fundamental parts of any router is for it to filter information from the internet that you might not want. The life of the hacker can be foiled by your rout
er by
blocking the ports that internet traffic passes across. The downside to this is that your router may be blocking traffic that you want.

Well the DM602 has two options. 1) You configure port[3] forwarding, this tells the router to forward anything that comes in on the port number that you specify, and says you should go here (to your computer) now. 2) You can turn this option off by configuring the router to use your PC as its DMZ [4] - in which case all the traffic goes directly to your PC. The only downside to this is that you must ensure your computer is properly safe guarded against attacks from the internet!

The first router I borrowed was practically impossible to configure in either of those two ways, the DM602 is so simple my Nan could have worked it out.

Even the firmware is easy to upgrade, simply download the software from the web and point the modem at the file. It does everything you need it to do on its own!

The final option of relevance is how you use your equipment. Is it a router or a modem? The fundamental difference is that a router can forward its traffic to multiple machines providing you have a hub [5]. A modem will connect one machine to the internet and one machine alone. This does of course become restrictive if your idea is to connect multiple machines to the internet without using Internet Sharing.

That very much covers the import stuff. There are other options which let you check your connectivity to your ISP and machine but they aren?t very interesting and I?ve only looked at them at all to see what they were. They may be useful in certain circumstances, but really the manual will be your guide.

**..And Other Interesting Stories**

If you want to reset your modem to its factory standards you don?t have to muck around with Telnet or HyperTerminal. There?s a little button on the back. Depress for several seconds and voila, one reset modem.

**Dancing The Web F
andango**


The router generally handles traffic well. Web browsing, downloading and uploading can all be accomplished at the speeds that my line offers me. But. This is a huge BUT!

Have too many sessions running or have a large traffic application on the go, and things begin to slow down.

Point to Point (P2P) file sharing applications don?t like running over the DM602. Edonkey, Overnet, Kazaa and Bit Torrent, when actually connected, cause all the other functionality of the router to cease. As soon as I connect to one of these services I am no longer able to browse the web, use FTP, up or download. I can?t even ping those DNS servers I mentioned earlier.

Online gaming hasn?t been quite as smooth as the last router I was using either. Server lists seem to take a long time to load and games can seem laggy [6] even on a server which is reporting a 35 ? 60 (low!!) second ping rate.

In short if you only want to browse the web and do a bit of ?normal? internet activity then this is a good browser. Though you could probably pick up an equally sufficient (and possibly considerably better) piece of hardware for about two thirds (£40) of the price.

**Someone To Lean On**

Aha, I can hear you cry, but surely that thing with the P2P software was a fault? Well no unfortunately not, having tried various configurations between machine and router I called Netgear and tried them all again. Netgear would appear to outsource their IT support. I can?t say for sure who I was speaking to the Euro-American accents could have been from anywhere. The call waiting time was long (50 minutes on Tuesday morning) but when the support person answered was polite and knowledgeable.

Eventually they decided it was a fault and sent me a new router. Very good of them I thought. But that one doesn?t work either.

I?m trying to get my money back, look out for the op on Broadbandbuyer.co.uk when the product gets added.
In the mean time don?t go anywhere near them. Bad BAD BAAAAD people.

**Those Footnotes**

Whilst I?ve tried to make this as ?for the common man? as possible there are a few terms that are quite important but may leave you behind, to this end I?ve included them here!

[1] Default Gateway. This is the place where your computer goes to send traffic to the internet.
[2] DNS or Domain Name Servers. This is where addresses are translated in a way that the computers on the internet can understand. It?s how Yahoo.com tells people where it is.
[3] Port: All internet traffic requires a port to carry its internet traffic about for different services, for example e-mail, web-browsing, news servers, internet games and FTP. There are thousands of them, though you are only likely to encounter a small few.
[4] DMZ or Demilitarised Zone. Intended to be a place between your computer and the internet that is set up to ensure that your network cannot be attacked from malicious quarters.
[5] Hub, a box that has one port that connects to the internet, and two or more ports in which you connect your computer. The hub directs traffic as necessary
[6] Laggy, a common internet term indicate poor connectivity to the server, usually manifested in jumpy game play.

**An Update**

Okay, a few things here, firstly not only is the router a bit poo at routing it also steals all my phone line signal making telephone conversations impossible. For a while I thought it was my line, but having now used a different piece of kit (a BT Voyager Modem borrowed from a friend) I can see that I can have a line up and not have to worry about signal interferance!

Secondly, Netgear customer support. Yeah, not really upto much after all. Everytime I call I get a promise that UK Support will call me back. For the most part if their lines are busy they overflow to one of their other call centers around the world. The only ones who can really help a
re UK. So I get these promises and no-one EVER calls back. So far I've called them four times. Waiting around half an hour each time before they answer and spending around four hours on the phone. Even UK support have promised me a return phone call, as yet nothing.

Finally, during a conversation with Netgear they advised me my router should definately be able to handle Point to point apps. I asked them to email me with this information and once again the promise was broken. No email, no call back.

In closing, stear clear of anything from this firm. If it goes tits up you'll probably be counting the cost. If this is reputable I'd hate to deal with a company that isn't.

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