Price : Too low to display
Advanced Speed and Range with Comprehensive Internet Security with up to 15x the speed and 10x the coverage of 802.11g networks. Concurrent operation in 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz radio band for maximum wireless throughput. Backward compatibility with 802.11a, 802.11g and 802.11b network devices. Security features include WPA, WPA2, rogue AP detection and 802.1x with RADIUS support. It has support for 802.3af PoE for optimal placement of access point.
This review is from : Prosafe Dual Band Wirelss-n Access Point
Excellent AP. OK for advanced home user-read on . I use this AP along with a NetGear dual band WNDR3700 Router, a Netgear GS116NA Giga Switch switch and a Netgear WNHDE111 5 GHz AP. I have ethernet cables from each AP back to the switch.
When you open the box you'll find the build quality of this AP to be very impressive. You'll get a CD that has an excellent manual which describes how to set up the unit. You can also go to the Netgear website and download the manual to see what you will be getting into. Not so bad but you should really have some idea of wireless settings since you will be able to select and adjust them with the WNDAP350. The manual is very helpful and if you just want to set up WPA2-PSK using a PassPhrase [network key] on both bands you'll have no problems as you will leave almost all settings on their default.
When the device arrives you don't immediately put in on your network. First you'll hook up the WNDAP350 to a laptop or desktop computer via an ethernet cable [provided in the box]. This removes the computer from the network and allows it to communicate with the WNDAP350. Why, well the WNDAP350 comes with a default IP of 192.168.0.237 so you set your adapter to have a static IP of 192.168.0.210. [subnet 255.255.255.0]. All of this is covered in the manual. You then go to your browser and type in [...] and this opens the excellent interface for the WNDAP350. Then you set the IP of the WNDAP350 to what you want for your network, say 196.168.1.10, and click apply. You can then set the computer adapter you were using back to "obtain an IP address automatically" and hook it back into your network. Now you are all set to put the WNDAP350 in your network and you can complete all settings from any network computer using the browser interface built into the WNDAP350. If you make a mistake in configuring the unit there is a reset button so you can start the process over.
If this made sense to you or you're willing to learn then you can't beat this AP as its one of the best around.
Excellent AP. OK for advanced home user-read on . I use this AP along with a NetGear dual band WNDR3700 Router, a Netgear GS116NA Giga Switch switch and a Netgear WNHDE111 5 GHz AP. I have ethernet cables from each AP back to the switch.
When you open the box you'll find the build quality of this AP to be very impressive. You'll get a CD that has an excellent manual which describes how to set up the unit. You can also go to the Netgear website and download the manual to see what you will be getting into. Not so bad but you should really have some idea of wireless settings since you will be able to select and adjust them with the WNDAP350. The manual is very helpful and if you just want to set up WPA2-PSK using a PassPhrase [network key] on both bands you'll have no problems as you will leave almost all settings on their default.
When the device arrives you don't immediately put in on your network. First you'll hook up the WNDAP350 to a laptop or desktop computer via an ethernet cable [provided in the box]. This removes the computer from the network and allows it to communicate with the WNDAP350. Why, well the WNDAP350 comes with a default IP of 192.168.0.237 so you set your adapter to have a static IP of 192.168.0.210. [subnet 255.255.255.0]. All of this is covered in the manual. You then go to your browser and type in [...] and this opens the excellent interface for the WNDAP350. Then you set the IP of the WNDAP350 to what you want for your network, say 196.168.1.10, and click apply. You can then set the computer adapter you were using back to "obtain an IP address automatically" and hook it back into your network. Now you are all set to put the WNDAP350 in your network and you can complete all settings from any network computer using the browser interface built into the WNDAP350. If you make a mistake in configuring the unit there is a reset button so you can start the process over.
If this made sense to you or you're willing to learn then you can't beat this AP as its one of the best around.
Prosafe Dual Band Wirelss-n Access Point Reviews
Excellent for small to medium business . Con: Does not yet support IPv6
Pro: The UI is easy to understand and navigate, easy to configure, internal wireless antennas are very powerful, no issues with connection Linux, Apple, Windows, and Android devices.
This is not for the new to medium user; when configuring you must know what all the acronyms mean and what effect any changes you make, have on the access point. This is a business class device and the screens expect that you know what you are doing.
If you want a high-end access point, this is the one to get; if you want a home network access point, consider something else.
Excellent for small to medium business . Con: Does not yet support IPv6
Pro: The UI is easy to understand and navigate, easy to configure, internal wireless antennas are very powerful, no issues with connection Linux, Apple, Windows, and Android devices.
This is not for the new to medium user; when configuring you must know what all the acronyms mean and what effect any changes you make, have on the access point. This is a business class device and the screens expect that you know what you are doing.
If you want a high-end access point, this is the one to get; if you want a home network access point, consider something else.
Prosafe Dual Band Wirelss-n Access Point Opinions
Average Product - It may work great or it may be terrible depending on your setup. . Overall this product is good for the price. However, I can't say that it's the right product for everyone, because it is not a solid product. This is going to be a long and detailed post, but I want to be fair and provide some real information that someone looking for a medium end WAP with business features for a home or a small business can use to make an informed decision.
My biggest complaint is that the wireless is a bit flaky. Connections randomly become slow and in some cases become unusable and have to be reestablished. When it is working as it should, the performance is good for a few devices doing data intensive work. e.g. A laptop streaming a move, Xbox 360 gaming and a laptop and an iPod on facebook and general web browsing. Too much of this and you will notice. I can stream 2 movies over wireless, 3 sometimes and forget 4.
The second major issue is Netgear seems to provide very poor support in fixing problems with these small business devices. It has taken a year for them to provide an update that fixes 2 issues and then a couple of months later they release an update that fixes 8 issues, but at the expense of loosing all of your settings. The fix to that is to manually enter your settings. That is just not acceptable for a business class device.
An issue I ran in to was that I had a friends Laptop running Windows Vista that would not work when connected to any of my SSIDs using WPA. I tried updates, different drivers, restored the laptop to factory defaults, tried different drivers again, etc., but it would not work with WPA. The connection would be established and the laptop could obtain an IP, but no communication would occur. It worked fine when connected to this WAP using WEP using the same SSID or others already configured for WEP. I tested this same laptop with a Netgear consumer wireless router (DIR-825) and a D-Link WAP (DWL-8600AP) and everything worked as expected when connected to an SSID using WPA or WEP on either of these devices. With the DIR-825 all things were not equal because it connected directly to my internet connection and had it's own SSIDs and wireless security settings, while connections from the WNDAP350 had to get through a pfSense firewall. However, DWL-8600AP is a business WAP and a potential replacement for the WNDAP350 and all of the SSIDs, WEP/WPA settings and keys, VLANs and connection to the pfSense firewall were identical. This indicates an issue specific to the WNDAP350 and the issue continued even when it and the laptop were reset to factory defaults.
Another issue is that the WNDAP350 does not boot via POE from my Cisco switch. It will using high end Cisco switches. Once the WNDAP350 has power if I unplug the main power it will remain powered via POE until I disconnect the Ethernet cable for about 5 seconds. So basically it will not boot using POE. The DWL-8600AP has no issue booting via POE when connected to my Cisco switch. This indicated that the WNDAP350 needs more power to boot then is claimed via their documentation.
Finally, I see a large number of IOCTL errors in the log which I have traced to being a problem with some wireless chipsets. These problems have been resolved long ago, but it seems that Netgear can't or won't fix this. This and related wireless patches could resolve the issues I have noted and that I have read in other reviews.
Well I hope this review helps someone make a decision. For some this device may work exceptionally well, but for others it could be a $280 nightmare. I have not been able to find any other WAP with this feature set at this price point. The closest replacement I have found is the D-Link DWL-8600AP which retails at just under $600 and it does not have all the features of the Netgear unless perhaps those can only be set via CLI which would be fine with me. The few "missing" features are not major, and may not be an issue for most, read below.
I have not had much time with the DWL-8600AP, but so far I have not been able to set WMM settings or the time zone, client isolation is all or nothing rather than SSID specific, time server hostnames that start with a number are not accepted and the web interface looks old, but it is faster than the Netgear interface and allows https only. On the plus side, the DWL-8600AP is NOT generating errors, has more solid wireless connectivity, allows you for force SSL access, works perfectly with POE, boots faster, allows for up to 16 SSID per radio (32 total), support for IPv6, etc. For performance and less headaches, the DWL-8600AP seems to be the better option. The price is steep, but not compared to a Cisco or Juniper with the same base feature set. As far as I can tell higher end products by companies like Cisco are the next step.
DWL-8600AP is working better for all my devices with more wireless traffic. So far I have streamed 3 movies over the network via 2 laptops and an Xbox 360 plus another movie via Netflix via a WDTV Live Plus while surfing with an iPod. Of course, there was other non-wireless local network and internet traffic at the same time. There have been no issues so far.
Average Product - It may work great or it may be terrible depending on your setup. . Overall this product is good for the price. However, I can't say that it's the right product for everyone, because it is not a solid product. This is going to be a long and detailed post, but I want to be fair and provide some real information that someone looking for a medium end WAP with business features for a home or a small business can use to make an informed decision.
My biggest complaint is that the wireless is a bit flaky. Connections randomly become slow and in some cases become unusable and have to be reestablished. When it is working as it should, the performance is good for a few devices doing data intensive work. e.g. A laptop streaming a move, Xbox 360 gaming and a laptop and an iPod on facebook and general web browsing. Too much of this and you will notice. I can stream 2 movies over wireless, 3 sometimes and forget 4.
The second major issue is Netgear seems to provide very poor support in fixing problems with these small business devices. It has taken a year for them to provide an update that fixes 2 issues and then a couple of months later they release an update that fixes 8 issues, but at the expense of loosing all of your settings. The fix to that is to manually enter your settings. That is just not acceptable for a business class device.
An issue I ran in to was that I had a friends Laptop running Windows Vista that would not work when connected to any of my SSIDs using WPA. I tried updates, different drivers, restored the laptop to factory defaults, tried different drivers again, etc., but it would not work with WPA. The connection would be established and the laptop could obtain an IP, but no communication would occur. It worked fine when connected to this WAP using WEP using the same SSID or others already configured for WEP. I tested this same laptop with a Netgear consumer wireless router (DIR-825) and a D-Link WAP (DWL-8600AP) and everything worked as expected when connected to an SSID using WPA or WEP on either of these devices. With the DIR-825 all things were not equal because it connected directly to my internet connection and had it's own SSIDs and wireless security settings, while connections from the WNDAP350 had to get through a pfSense firewall. However, DWL-8600AP is a business WAP and a potential replacement for the WNDAP350 and all of the SSIDs, WEP/WPA settings and keys, VLANs and connection to the pfSense firewall were identical. This indicates an issue specific to the WNDAP350 and the issue continued even when it and the laptop were reset to factory defaults.
Another issue is that the WNDAP350 does not boot via POE from my Cisco switch. It will using high end Cisco switches. Once the WNDAP350 has power if I unplug the main power it will remain powered via POE until I disconnect the Ethernet cable for about 5 seconds. So basically it will not boot using POE. The DWL-8600AP has no issue booting via POE when connected to my Cisco switch. This indicated that the WNDAP350 needs more power to boot then is claimed via their documentation.
Finally, I see a large number of IOCTL errors in the log which I have traced to being a problem with some wireless chipsets. These problems have been resolved long ago, but it seems that Netgear can't or won't fix this. This and related wireless patches could resolve the issues I have noted and that I have read in other reviews.
Well I hope this review helps someone make a decision. For some this device may work exceptionally well, but for others it could be a $280 nightmare. I have not been able to find any other WAP with this feature set at this price point. The closest replacement I have found is the D-Link DWL-8600AP which retails at just under $600 and it does not have all the features of the Netgear unless perhaps those can only be set via CLI which would be fine with me. The few "missing" features are not major, and may not be an issue for most, read below.
I have not had much time with the DWL-8600AP, but so far I have not been able to set WMM settings or the time zone, client isolation is all or nothing rather than SSID specific, time server hostnames that start with a number are not accepted and the web interface looks old, but it is faster than the Netgear interface and allows https only. On the plus side, the DWL-8600AP is NOT generating errors, has more solid wireless connectivity, allows you for force SSL access, works perfectly with POE, boots faster, allows for up to 16 SSID per radio (32 total), support for IPv6, etc. For performance and less headaches, the DWL-8600AP seems to be the better option. The price is steep, but not compared to a Cisco or Juniper with the same base feature set. As far as I can tell higher end products by companies like Cisco are the next step.
DWL-8600AP is working better for all my devices with more wireless traffic. So far I have streamed 3 movies over the network via 2 laptops and an Xbox 360 plus another movie via Netflix via a WDTV Live Plus while surfing with an iPod. Of course, there was other non-wireless local network and internet traffic at the same time. There have been no issues so far.
Cons Review
TOTAL SCAM BY Netgear - UNBELIEVABLE!!! . *In my opinion*, Netgear has defrauded anyone who has bought this product.
Read Netgear's website on this product. It clearly states, under the very first bullet point, "Performance - Wireless N with Concurrent dual band operation with quality of service".
Dual Band operation means working at both 2.4GHz and 5GHz simultaneously.
We bought 8 of these ($2,000 for them at the time). I setup dual band, point-to-multipoint. PtM means your laptop wireless signal gets handed-off from one of these devices to the next seamlessly, no drop in Internet connection, just like your cell phone with cell towers, so your call doesn't (shouldn't) drop while your moving. It killed our network traffic, 90-100% packet loss.
This is an excerpt from the Netgear technician's response to me:
"I would like to inform you that this setup will not work for dual band. We also don't have any firmware version for your device to enable this setup. I highly suggest you to use the single band and work for it at this moment. Please let me have this time to check with our programmers if there will be some changes that will enable this request that you have."
Eric
So, to recap: they sell this as a fully functional dual band device at more than double the price of the single band model, and then tell you to use it as a single band model.
You decide.
Read Netgear's website on this product. It clearly states, under the very first bullet point, "Performance - Wireless N with Concurrent dual band operation with quality of service".
Dual Band operation means working at both 2.4GHz and 5GHz simultaneously.
We bought 8 of these ($2,000 for them at the time). I setup dual band, point-to-multipoint. PtM means your laptop wireless signal gets handed-off from one of these devices to the next seamlessly, no drop in Internet connection, just like your cell phone with cell towers, so your call doesn't (shouldn't) drop while your moving. It killed our network traffic, 90-100% packet loss.
This is an excerpt from the Netgear technician's response to me:
"I would like to inform you that this setup will not work for dual band. We also don't have any firmware version for your device to enable this setup. I highly suggest you to use the single band and work for it at this moment. Please let me have this time to check with our programmers if there will be some changes that will enable this request that you have."
Eric
So, to recap: they sell this as a fully functional dual band device at more than double the price of the single band model, and then tell you to use it as a single band model.
You decide.
No good as P2P Bridge . When configured as a P2P bridge associated with a P2MultiP Briodge: the radios auto-off after a few hours and don't come back on till a reboot or power off/on. I threw one away, bought another....same problem....I won't buy that brand again.
Feature Prosafe Dual Band Wirelss-n Access Point
- Metal case includes Kensington lock slot for anti-theft
- Internal antennas factory-optimized for maximum RF performance
- Security features include WPA, WPA2, rogue AP detection and 802.1x with RADIUS support
- Deploy wireless coverage over large areas with point-to-point and point-to-multipoint bridging via Wireless Distribution System (WDS)
- Lifetime hardware warranty
Related Post
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Antennas - Trade Up To Xtm 22-W 1-YR Ls
- Wireless G Access Point w/ P.O.E. and Rangebooster.
Product Details
EAN : 0606449064643UPC : 606449064643
MPN : WNDAP350-100NAS
Brand : Netgear
Weight : 6 pounds
Height : 3 inches
Length : 12 inches
Width : 10 inches
Binding : Personal Computers
Manufacturer : Netgear
Model : WNDAP350-100NAS
Publisher : Netgear
SKU : U43534538
Studio : Netgear
Where To Buy
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