You'd be hard-pressed to find a true draft-n router for less than you can buy the Linksys Ultra RangePlus Wireless-N Router (WRT160N). Linksys's own RangePlus Wireless Router (WRT110) may be $20 cheaper on the mean streets of Techtown, but it's not a true draft-n machine (it employs Linksys's RangePlus "n" emulation technology). Nor does it take advantage of Linksys's free LELA 3.0 network management software. The WRT160N does. Those differences aside, however, the WRT160N is fairly similar to its less-expensive sibling in features and, unfortunately, throughput.

Externally, the RangePlus and Ultra RangePlus are exactly the same. Five Ethernet ports adorn the rear of the router: one WAN/Internet and four wired Ethernet ports, although none are Gigabit Ethernet (GigE) capable. There's also no USB port for Linksys Storage Link technology or printer sharing. You will, however, like the new Linksys case design—the sleek, black and gray case with no external antennas visible has real Dark Knight flair.

I found setup to be a muddled affair, and starkly different from the easy process I sped through with our vintage 2007 Editors' Choice–winning Linksys WRT600N. First, there's the dual-LELA (Linksys EasyLink Advisor) software issue. LELA has been the name of the company's installation wizard for several product generations. Now Linksys has released LELA version 3.0, which acts as a home network management system. Although only a version number distinguishes the two applications, they're very different products. Straight LELA is the wizard that kicks off when you click on Install Router after the installation CD starts during Autorun. LELA 3.0 is the network management software, and that's a separate install (or download) that shouldn't run until after the wizard completes.

That "after the wizard completes" part was a bit of an issue for me, because it hung both times I configured the WRT160N: once with my Comcast cable modem at home and again with the DSL line here in PC Magazine Labs. The same wizard hiccupped at the same place when I tested the Linksys WRT110, but it did eventually complete. With the WRT160N, however, it never recovered. The setup process runs fine until it asks you to connect the DSL line to the router and power everything up. But after I did that, the installation utility failed to find the router. The router, however, sees the broadband Internet connection, gets an external address, and hands out an internal address to the machine running the installation CD—so you can actually surf the Internet while the installation wizard is still looking for the router.

The fact that I couldn't get to LELA 3.0 from the wizard didn't bug me very much because I had a press release telling me where to find the network management package. Regular customers, on the other hand, will need to remember to kill the install wizard after it fails, eject the CD, and then reinsert it to kick off Autorun again. That will bring up the CD's menu, from which you can select Install LELA 3.0. Perhaps by the time you read this, Linksys will have fixed the issue.—Next: Management

Management

Once you're out of Dante's Inferno of Installation, however, you'll see vintage Linksys—the same impressive Web-based management interface as on every other Linksys product—though you won't find all the advanced goodies common to more expensive models like the WRT600N. Saving new information (like my new SSID and new security settings) simply requires a click on Save and a short wait (10 seconds) while the router updates. If it's rebooting during this time, it's being quick about it.

The advanced options are the same as those offered with the WRT110; they include support for VPN pass-through, DHCP and NAT as well as an SPI firewall. Instead of the Virtual Server technology employed by some of the other draft-n routers, the WRT160N relies on Dynamic DNS services to provide a slightly more limited version of public-to-private pass-through—though the DDNS option does have a couple of nice features aimed specifically at supporting a mail server if you're into that kind of thing at home.

On the wireless side, the WRT160N can support any of the more common wireless encryption and authentication schemes (such as WEP, WPA, and WPA2). You also get a nice MAC filtering option, which lets you set the router to allow access from only the MAC addresses of your home machines. Folks trying to surf for free from neighboring houses, apartments, or cars will be locked out.

You can set the SPI firewall to allow or disallow Internet traffic to certain clients at certain times. Those new to networking may find the presentation a little unwieldy, though. Overall, I favor the whitelist approach used by the D-Link Xtreme N Duo and SMC Barricade better. But it will get the job done if you're a parent looking to keep your kids from the Internet's bad places. You're just going to have to make sure the little tykes can't get into the router's management interface, and you'll probably also have to lock them out of the Internet entirely until you're home from work.

The WRT160N supports QoS (Quality of Service), though not via the new WISH (Wireless Intelligent Stream Handling) or StreamEngine technologies employed by higher-end routers like the D-Link Xtreme N Duo or the SMC Barricade N. Instead, Linksys allows you to assign four levels of priority to a variety of traffic streams, usually identified by their TCP/IP ports. You can also set QoS by MAC address, Ethernet Port, or device type (if the device is for voice-over-IP). The QoS menu has a drop-down selection list for specific games, but these preset choices are so old you'll likely be using one of the other means to identify the traffic. Most home users, however, will need to spend some time in the help system to figure out how those controls work.—Next: Performance

Performance

In performance testing, the WRT160N was close to the Trendnet 300Mbps Wireless N Gigabit Router. It was, in fact, only slightly faster than the WRT110, which uses an optimized form of MIMO to talk to wireless-n, rather than actually conforming to the draft-n specification. I tested the WRT160N using a Dell XPS running Windows Vista Ultimate and connecting with a Linksys RangePlus Wireless Notebook Adapter (WUSB100), as well as with a Gateway E275-M laptop), running Vista Business and using a Netgear Dual-Band Wireless-N USB Adapter (WNDA3100). Using Ixia's IxChariot and JPerf, throughput averaged 116 megabits per second at an optimal range of 20 feet. Speed took a steep drop to 73 Mbps at 50 feet, and then a swan dive down to 38 Mbps at 80 feet. Adding an IBM ThinkPad T42 with its legacy internal wireless-g adapter dropped the "n" clients' throughput by anywhere from 11 and 26 percent depending on range.

The Linksys Ultra RangePlus Wireless-N Router WRT160N is a good choice if you're looking for the cheapest wireless-n router you can find. It's a little slow, even for a 2.4-GHz-only router, but it's still significantly faster than wireless-g and slightly faster than the ultra-cheap WRT110. Linksys LELA 3.0 will be a nice addition, once Linksys gets it working right. In any case, the router's management interface offers enough options to make most home users happy—once they get past the installation bugs. There are certainly better, easier-to-use routers out there, but few you can find for under $100 on the street.

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