Pros & Cons
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- Low price.
- Good range.
- Wireless-n compatibility.
- Wi-Fi Protected Setup enabled.
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- Slow performance.
- Not true wireless-n technology.
- Slightly buggy install routine.
- No Gigabit Ethernet.
- No USB sharing features.
Linksys RangePlus Wireless Router WRT110 Specs
| 802.11x/Band(s): | Yes |
| Access Control Lists Based on MAC Addresses: | Yes |
| Antennas: External: | No |
| Antennas: Internal: | Yes |
| Antennas: Optional Range-extending: | No |
| Antennas: Wall-mountable: | No |
| Chipset: | Broadcom |
| Device Type: | Router |
| Kerberos Authentication: | No |
| NAT: | Yes |
| Networking Options: | 802.11n |
| Parental Controls: | Yes |
| RADIUS: | Yes |
| Setup: | Proprietary Setup |
| Stateful Packet Inspection: | Yes |
| WPA Security: | Yes |
Two things you need to know about the Linksys RangePlus Wireless Router WRT110: First, it's the low end of the Linksys router line (at least in terms of price). Second, it's not a draft-n router. It does connect to wireless-n clients using MIMO smart-antenna technology, which is designed to deliver almost n-class throughput while also maintaining backward compatibility with wireless-g and 802.11b clients. The WRT110 even has a decent range; and you can get it for a street price of around $70. All that sounds great, but there are too many trade-offs.
A couple of those are in hardware. You'll find four switched Ethernet ports on the back (along with the usual WAN/Internet port), but they're only 10/100, not Gigabit Ethernet (GigE). And you won't come across a USB port for attaching printers or hard drives. Then again, for 70 bucks I wasn't really expecting those features, and the router does have a Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) button, which is a nice touch. You also get the new ultra-sleek Linksys router design: No antennas mar the surface of this smartly curved hunk o' plastic. All you see is smooth black and carbon-fiber grey, making the enclosure look a little like Batman's cigar case.
Setup uses the Linksys EasyLink Advisor (LELA) installation software. Linksys recently introduced an upgraded version that has turned the software into a home network management package called LELA 3.0. Confusingly, the installation and the network management packages share the LELA name, though they're actually separate products requiring separate installations. WRT110 users need worry only about the LELA installation package, though, because Linksys hasn't made the router compatible with the network management stuff as yet. There may be an upgrade in the future that will incorporate management into the WRT110, but for now you're on your own in the network management department.
The standard LELA software ran just fine for installation, with a slight hiccup when I attached the router to PC Magazine Labs' DSL connection and again when I connected my home cable line. In both cases, LELA took several minutes to recognize that the line had been attached. Meanwhile, the router saw the line just fine, configured itself with an external address, and handed out connections to my test PCs. LELA caught up after a while, though, and finished its installation routine, assigning an SSID (a network name) to my wireless network, letting me choose a wireless security mode (I chose WPA2, of course), and then giving me a summary of all my important network information.
Once you've gotten through LELA, you can log in to the WRT110's standard Web-based management interface. If you're familiar with Linksys routers (for example, if you've made some bad life choices and are now doomed to test routers over and over again), the interface will look and feel familiar. Linksys left most of its advanced home-router features active, including VPN, (IPsec, or PPTP) pass-through, DHCP and NAT, an SPI firewall, and mechanisms for opening ports for specific TCP/IP applications.
The company opted to stick with its existing system for configuring QoS rules rather than using something more recent and easier for new users, like WISH (Wireless Intelligent Stream Handling) or StreamEngine. Still, if you dig through the user guide a bit, you'll find that enabling traffic prioritization isn't that difficult. You can have the router determine which of four prioritization levels to assign based on traffic type, TCP/IP port, and MAC address, among other considerations.
Internet access control lets you manage the kids' Web surfing, but overall the tools are more limited than in many of the other routers I've tested. I didn't see a way to do whitelists, so you're stuck with simply turning the Internet off while you're not home so the kids can't surf without supervision. And you'll have to keep them out of the router entirely, as it supports only one user (the administrator). Give them access to that account, and they can change anything they want, including the Internet controls.—
Performance
The RangePlus enhanced wireless technology (based on MIMO technology) is what gives the WRT110 its near-n-but-not-really-n throughput capabilities. RangePlus used to be called SpeedBooster. Like similar "near-whatever" technologies from other vendors, SpeedBooster could achieve n-class throughput, as long as you were using only the maker's own compatible equipment—that is, a Linksys wireless network card with a Linksys SpeedBooster router. I figured the same would be true for RangePlus.
Only it isn't.
I tested the WRT110 using a Linksys RangePlus USB adapter in a Dell XPS with Vista Ultimate installed and a Netgear Dual-Band Wireless-N USB Adapter (WNDA3100) running in a Gateway E275-M with Vista Home Premium. Although the Linksys adapters averaged slightly higher throughput than the Netgear adapter, we're talking about an unnoticeable two or three megabits. The WRT110 performed similarly enough with both Linksys and non-Linksys "n" adapters that users won't notice the difference.
Overall performance is darn slow compared with the throughput of other draft-n routers—even some of those using only the 2.4-GHz band, like the Trendnet 300-Mbps Wireless N Gigabit Router, which can still manage 186 Mbps at 20 feet, when paired with only "n" equipment. At the optimal wireless networking range of 20 feet, the WRT110 averaged only 110 Mbps when paired with a wireless-n adapter. At 50 feet, that dropped to 62 Mbps. I was somewhat pleased, though, to see a little less of a drop, to only 43 Mbps, at 80 feet and beyond. So although the WRT110 operates below draft-n speeds, it's still faster than wireless-g, and it's got legs when it comes to long range.
I suppose if money is extremely tight and you're looking just for wireless home networking with a minimal feature set, the WRT110 is one way to go. Even then, for an additional cost that's no more than the price of a couple of movie tickets, you can buy the Linksys Ultra RangePlus Wireless-N Router WRT160N, a true draft-n router that has better throughput, the same backward compatibility with wireless-g as the WRT110, and the LELA network management kit (which, granted, still needs some work). While it's got decent range, the WRT110 just doesn't have much else to recommend it.
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Final Thoughts
Linksys RangePlus Wireless Router WRT110
The WRT110 comes at a very low price for a router than can talk to wireless-n clients. But because it has a slightly buggy install routine, slow performance, and little in the way of cutting-edge features, you'd probably be better off paying a bit more for something else.