ZyXEL X-550 Xtrememimo 802.11G MIMO Wireless Broadband Router

After my Linksys WRT54G failed, I was not looking forward to another wireless router installation 'experience'. It took the better part of one day to install the Linksys with the aid of multiple downloaded documents from their web site to finally get the right combination to work. The Linksys was still in warranty when it failed, but no amount of money or service would convince me to continue using this unit. I was tired of having to reconfigure it about once a month when it would just decide to quit working.

So, thanks to high ratings for the Zyxel X-550 router on Amazon.com, I thought I would go this route. I am not a real technical writer so I am not going to get into the comptuer buzz words that the geeks will use (I do not understand what they say anyway). I do not care how it works, as long as it works and is easy to install.

Well, I followed the basic installation instructions and it was working within minutes. I use a Bellsouth provided DSL modem and...Read more

After struggling with other routers that had firmware bugs and hardware problems, the Zyxel X-550 impresses me with its reliability. Not only that, but it has some features that I haven't found in very many routers. Manual configuration of routing table entries and named schedules are just two examples. The named schedules can be used to control when content filtering, port mapping, and other functions are activated. You only have to enter a time period once and give it a name to use everywhere else.

The router supports the most advanced encryption options, including WPA PSK with either TKIP or AES. It also supports negotiation of TKIP versus AES, and WPA versus WPA2. That makes it support a wide range of wireless clients, taking advantage of their maximum capabilities.

Security is no problem for this router. It supports MAC filtering, and can disable SSID broadcasts to further secure the wireless network. It has very flexible content filtering to...Read more

I recently got Vonage and was unhappy with the voice quality when uploading from my PC. The Vonage adapter was supposed to have QOS (Quality of Service) for downstream PC's, but it didn't work for me.
I got this router, and was amazed. It worked great and handled QOS perfectly out of the box - no configuration required. As a test, I called someone on the Vonage phone while uploading at full speed from my PC (bittorrent). The person on the other end of the line didn't hear any voice quality degradation. Highly recommended for this feature alone.