Netgear WGE101 802.11g Wireless Ethernet Bridge (WGE101NA)

Now you can make the most of your computer games and entertainment.

1 Finally, a product that works--
I have an old computer that I was trying to hook up to a wireless network. After two trys with PCI cards (only to find out that my computer bus was too old to be compatible) I resorted to buying a wireless bridge to plug in to my ethernet port--it works! Just a warning--get the same brand bridge as you have in the wireless router to make things easy! I got a different bridge because it was cheaper and it was more difficult to set up and broke in two days (Also Amazon.com had a good price and there return policy is good if you have a problem--most other stores charge a restocking fee--I found that out the hard way)

2 Great Bridge......After you update the firmware.
I use this bridge connected to a linksys switch for my Xbox, Playstation 2, and my ReplayTV. When I first purchased the bridge I had a hard time getting it to link to my roommate's wireless router (Buffalo Wireless). It was seeing great signal strength, but wouldn't connect to it. I went online and got the latest firmware for the bridge, and in 10 seconds had it working great. It has pretty good speed, and I don't get any lag (usually) when playing online games. I still think it's a little pricey for what you get though, but that's just me.

3 Works great--but only after lots of configuration/support
I decided to piggyback off the wifi signal of a neighbor. Out of the box, the WGE101 refused to connect to the signal. After a couple of calls to NetGear support in India, a firmware upgrade solved the problem. But then I tried to connect the WGE101 to my NetGear wireless router/switch (the WGE101 does not have a switch so it can be directly connected to only one device), nothing connected to the switch could connect to the Internet. After a few more calls to NetGear support, turning off DHCP and manually configuring the IP settings seemed to solve the problem. Later, I decided not having DHCP was a hassle, so I turned DHCP back on, and everything seems to be working fine.

The WGE101 is a new product, so if you're a newbie who wants to plug-n-play, you'll be disappointed. But if you're a little bit technical (e.g., you know how to configure IP settings and update firmware), and you don't mind having to spend a few hours on the phone with technical support and messing around with settings, then the final result will be worth it.

4 Check the MAC Address
I purchased this product to re-connect my wired network to my wireless network. I have a Linkys WET54G which I moved to another location in the house. To make a long story short, I found that the WGE101 MAC address was being incorrectly reported by the setup software it comes with. I finally got it to connect with WRT54G after I put in the MAC address it was seeing. Works great now that its set up and connected.

5 Decent speeds in mixed mode
I already own the WGT 624 that goes b/g/super-g, and my laptop was just b, but I bought for the future when I got a g-bridge (mainly for my xbox).

With the router setup as b and g, I got throughput speeds of 2.5 megabytes a second from a different floor of the house from bridge to router, which is about 20Mbps.

I've always bought netgear products and I like the whole slick-silver design, and the ability to stack the units on top of each other. I already own the FS608 and could stack the bridge ontop of that.

My only problems with the router was how to add it to the access list. I figured out that you do NOT add the bridge's mac address, but instead any device that connects through the bridge to the router... so if you have 15 computers being bridged to the router, you have to add all 15 mac addresses to the router... that sounds like somewhat of a pain, but if you think about it, your network is that much more secure...

The reason I say that is, suppose you had a bridge connecting to an accesspoint to further spread signals within your network... well by having to add every mac address that goes through the bridge, you are individually authorizing everyone, instead of just allowing the bridge itself.

Anyways... I feel it's a good product and will continue to buy from netgear.

6 Works great with the Netgear WGT624
I just picked up the WGE101 from zoomfly.com, it works great. DIdn't have a difficult time setting it up, everything went smoothly.

7 Didn't work for me
This product didn't work for me. It refuses to communicate with my Linksys 802.11g Access Point/Router box. According to press reports other people have seen the same problem and the Netgear firmware in the WGE101 box seems to be at fault. What's odd is a Netgear 802.11g USB adapter works fine with the Linksys access point.

The Netgear bridge did work with the Netgear WGR614 access point, but I had to stop using the Netgear access point because it locked up every few days for some unknown reason.

Given my experiences with the WGE101 and WGR614 boxes, I think Netgear isn't up to speed yet on 802.11g technology.

8 Not useful for longer distance links
I am quite disappointed about the product.

I run a 5 mile link with two large external antennas with an old Orinoco AP-1000 and a Avaya PCMCIA client since over a year. It offers a stable performance and around 4 MBit/s on the application level (e.g. ftp) - this ist what you can expect from a 802.11b device. The link has about 10dB margin.

I tried to replace the PCMCIA client through the WGE101. After a lot of configuration trials I found out that Netgears algorithm that generates WEP keys from a passphrase is different from that of other manufacturers (Proxim/Orinoco and D-Link use compatible ones), and after filling in the right key the link worked basically. It has the same 10dB margin (tested with an attenuator), but the throughput is ridiculous - about 500 kbit/s downstream and 80 kbit/s (!!) upstream.

The signal strength of the WGE101 at the AP is even higher than that of the PCMCIA card; nevertheless the AP monitors a lot of FCS errors. Either the transmitted signal modulation quality of the WGE101 is so much inferior to the Avaya card, or there is a protocol incompatibility. The WGE101 displays RSSI of "39...56 %" (whatever this may mean in true dBm - it should be around -91...-81 dBm), always with a "green" bar, depending upon the extra attenuation.

There is nearly nothing to tune or to monitor on the WGE101, you don't see error rates or even the used data rate. No chance to e.g. lock the rate to 5.5 or 2 Mb/s. Nice for dumb users in simple cases but annoying otherwise. Though I managed to come through to the 2nd level support at Netgear they couldn't help me while being friendly.

Maybe the box works well for short indoor links. But do not use it for serious applications. Conclusion: if you buy trash you get trash...

9 Works as advertised w/ minimum fuss
Basically, just worked as advertised. Connected to D-LINK 624 (802.11g) on wireless side and small 10/100 switch on the other.

Full 128 bit WEP encryption is in place and works splendidly, with no noticable impact on performance.

DHCP services provided by router accross bridge to multiple PC's on wired network w/out issue.

This device is able to serve as a DHCP client as well, making network configuration pretty easy. Because of the IP range I use, I did have to set the network configuration while connected only to a single PC, then power down and attach to network. Once configuration was complete, however, fired right up and got itself and IP and was off and running.

Overall, very pleased. Good purchase for a good price.

10 Great Wireless Bridge
I'm using the Netgear WGE101 to contect to a Netgear WGR614 router/switch which in turn is connected to a cable modem for internet access. It works flawslessly with 99% signal strength at 40 feet and several walls between the two devices. The security features that you can use with the combined Netgear setup is really outstanding.