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ZyXEL Prestige 310
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The Bad The ZyXEL P310 does have one bad side though, and it's not even really the fault In my case, I have a very basic setup, consisting of one machine connected to the router, and I use the hardware authentication described earlier. In order for me to get my setup working, it was necessary to: A) Unplug the cable modem power, Wait for it to all sync up, and voile', I'm back in business. It seems pretty straightforward, except that NO WHERE in the manual does it spell these steps out. You have to figure out not only the correct programming for your type of connection, but also the proper sequence of events to get it running correctly. This can be a huge drawback if you're not comfortable with experimenting and spending some time troubleshooting trying to find the correct path and sequence of events. You can avoid some of this, by doing pre-installation research and talking to your cable or xDSL company to see what kinds of settings you will need. This is not an intuitive setup though and trying to feel your way through will make for a very frustrating experience. Configuration Software I finally got the windows software loaded after I had upgraded the firmware for the router to the latest version, and downloaded the latest software. It's important to note that once you upgrade the router firmware, any configuration you may have is wiped out, so you'll need to write down all the settings you had and reconfigure the router. The windows software is nice looking graphically, but is rather basic, and really only covers simple setup and monitoring. Any real customizing currently has to be done through the serial interface. I sincerely hope they add the ability to configure the firewalls and other services through a graphic interface as soon as Support Issues ZyXEL tech support is decent, usually responding to emails the same or next business day. It took some searching through their support area, but I did finally find some sample firewall configurations to look at, and that made it easier to understand how the firewall setup occurs in the ZyXEL. I really wish they'd included this with the printed manual, and would really push for them to add it to any future releases of that manual. Without those kinds of instructions at hand, and information from your service provider about the type of connection and authentication they do, router setup can be a daunting task. I cannot really speak to speeds across the WAN port, primarily because I have a 1.5mbps cable connection so I'll never reach 10mbps or anything near it. I've not seen any noticeable slowdown in downloads or uploads as a result of the router now being between me and the my cable connection, and various bandwidth speed tests did not seem to suffer at all, so I feel confident I'm reaching at least 1.5mbps across the WAN. As to latency, the router seems to add between a 5-10ms delay, which is very little for the amount of work it's doing, and worth the extra security it adds.
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