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Review on πŸ“Ά Cisco-Linksys WRT160N Wireless-N Broadband Router: Superior Connectivity for Seamless Internet Access by Chris Bowden

Revainrating 4 out of 5

Below average router and customer service. Do not buy

As of last November I have version 2 of this router which replaces its predecessor, the Linksys BEFW11S4 Wireless-B Cable/DSL Router. It works, but the performance was way below average and I really don't see any performance gain from this upgrade to N, especially for my wireless N equipped machines. The router has to be restarted constantly because the Internet access is intermittently (slowly) interrupted. The restart immediately returns to the normal speed of Internet access. The BEFW11S4 has never had a problem in this regard. I recently tried updating the firmware to the 15th July build as posted recently on the Linksys/Cisco download site and was hoping to resolve these issues. The update via the router's admin page failed halfway through and the device became unusable! And this is my first time dealing with Linksys/Cisco technical support and customer service. Long story short I went through two departments and they insisted you go through their repeated diagnostic sessions for about an hour including the girl from their customer service department who kept me awake for over fifteen minutes before finally hanging up. At the time of writing this article, I still don't have a satisfactory solution to my problem. I rarely give a company such a harsh rating. But they're really hard to deal with when you need to call them when their product or software isn't behaving as advertised. Update: After 6+ nagging tech support/customer service reps, there is finally a sane staff. who can see from the customer's point of view and make the process relatively painless and reasonable. Thanks to Sarang at Linksys Technical Support! I would give 5 stars!

Pros
  • 1 year trial
Cons
  • Everything is fine