A LinkSys Router can provide an all-in-one solution for Internet connectivity in your home. This can give you the ultimate fast connection to the Internet, much faster than dial-up and does not tie up your phone line. Multiple Personal Computers and Laptops can be connected to create your own home network. Files, printers, hard drive space and other resources can be shared, as well as having the ability to play head-to-head games. Four Personal Computers can be directly attached, or more hubs and switches can be connected to create whatever size network you require. The function enables your whole network to share one high-speed Internet connection.

The LinkSys Router has eight significant features:

1. Port filtering, MAC and IP address filtering, DM2 hosting and NAT technology – providing greatly improved security management functions

2. Easy to configure through a Personal Computer or Laptop’s Web browser

3. 4 10/100 Auto MDI0x LANs with ports and 1 ADSL port can be supported

4. RFC1483, PPPoE and PPPoA connections are fully supported

5. Up to 25 Mbps ADSL/2 compliant – SPI firewall with Denial Of Service attach prevention

6. Web-based and Email logging of security events

7. Supports 5 VPN Tunnels for IPSec and VPN Passthrough for IPSec, PPTP and L2TP products

8. Manufacturer’s warranty for two years.

The physical set-up of LinkSys models will always differ slightly from one another, but this does not present a problem as all models have the same basic design.

Thus, across the models you will find the process similar:

A.Join the antennas to the router

B.From your broadband Internet provider, you need to plug in the Ethernet cable into the Internet port

C.In one of the available ports, plug in another Ethernet cable

D.The other end of this cable needs to be plugged into an Ethernet port on your Personal Computer.

A Setup Wizard now comes with LinkSys Routers, which aims to simplify basic configuration tasks. However, use of the Wizard is not recommended because it is not much easier than the usual configuration menus and using it will result in you learning two interfaces instead of just one. It is far simpler to start by using your web browser and going straight into the configuration. Having opened your browser, navigate to http://192.168.1.1/. A popup box will then ask you to enter a username and password. The username can either be left blank or type in “admin". Once logged in, you can access and change a multitude of configuration options. There is a large number and variety of options, but this need not worry you as it comes with default settings. This will enable it to work immediately. Which configuration options you choose is now mainly up to your personal choice.

If you have a wireless router, it s recommended that you think about setting an SSID. This will identify it as yours. Also, you can configure WEP so that wireless traffic will be encrypted.

By following these straightforward instructions, you will successfully set up it and be able to enjoy it many benefits.