Linksys, what happened to thee?

I've been around computers so long I remember back before they were networked together.  Then came the modem revolution, you would use your modem (remember USRobotics?) to dial your ISP to connect to the Internet.  Fortunately that era didn't last long - broadband (DSL and cable modems) brought that to an end.  When broadband was taking off, so did products from Linksys.  Hubs, switches, routers, wiressless access points, DSL and cable modems, etc.  Just about everyone had a Linksys device, and I highly recommended them for about a decade.  But lately I've had nothing but problems with Linksys, to the point that I can no longer recommend their products.

About 1 year ago I purchased a Linksys E3200 wireless router.  This was one of their top-of-the-line models.  Wireless N speeds, dual band 2.4 and 5GHz frequencies, gigabit wired ports, etc.  But this router has turned out to be a huge disappointment.  The problem stems from the fact the 5GHz band in basically useless.  When you turn the router on both the 2.4 and 5GHz bands are active.  But within several hours the 5GHz band will suddenly stop broadcasting.  If you login to the router it gives no indication of a problem.  The only way to restore the 5GHz band is to power off and on the router.  But within a few hours the 5GHz band will be down again.

Since I can't keep cycling the router like this, I spent the extra money to buy what amounts to a 2.4-only router.  Sadly this is a common problem.  Internet searches turn up lots of people with my exact problem.  And Linksys has not released a firmware update to fix this.

So I finally decided to kick this piece of junk to the curb and buy a new router.  I purchased a NetGear WNDR4300 wireless router.  Many of the same specs; wireless N, dual band 2.4 and 5GHz, and gigabit wired network.

I've been using the new router now for about a week and not had a single problem.  The 5GHz band is rock solid.  I also like some of the features of this router.  The new "guest network" features are much nicer.  With the Linksys you could create a guest network, but it was unlocked and required the user to visit a web page and enter a password.  Whereas this works, I don't like that anyone in my neighborhood could try and snoop my guests.  Also, the guest network was only on the 2.4 band.  With the NetGear it has both 2.4 and 5GHz guest networks, both of which are fully encrypted and secure.  Much nicer!

I don't know if Linksys' problems started with they were purchased by Cisco - but I no longer recommend their hardware.  I've heard great things about NetGear (which is why I went with them).  So give them a try if you're looking for a networking product.