It’s foolproof - so long as you’re a “fool.” I opened the box, eager to get running on a wireless A network. At least, to have my Xbox 360 connect to my Media Center PC using the 802.11a wireless protocol. I usually just log into the router directly and edit the settings there. By default, Linksys routers typically use “linksys” as the username and “admin” as the password. Not so with the WRT55AG (but I didn’t know that right away). After a few minutes of guesswork, I had to throw in the setup CD and run through it - only I couldn’t. I couldn’t work through the router yet and had to have a live Internet connection to my primary PC. No go. Why? Because Comcast only allows you to go through a single MAC address - which doesn’t currently to any computer with a working operating system at the moment. Ugh. I was ready to beat my head up against the wall when I tried to enter the router without a username - entering only the default password. Voila! Now I was in… and ready to set up some defaults. It, too, proved to be a challenge.

I use Maxthon as my default browser - but Maxthon doesn’t like the Linksys software on the WRT55AG (or vice versa). I was getting ready to cry at this point. Is Wireless A really *THAT* important to have? I pushed through with Firefox easily enough. For the most part, the Web-based UI for the WRT55AG is familiar. I noticed a few improvements over my old router’s config (viewing information for the connected machines is much more robust now), and a few steps backwards from earlier revisions (I can’t seem to add/change/edit the router’s username, several javascripts and images are misbehaving in Maxthon, etc.). My OOTB experience with this one was less-than-stellar, and I’m not going to be so quick to recommend it as I have other Linksys products in the past. However, the true test will be in how well it handles my home network - both wired and wirelessly. I got it from Amazon for a pretty low price the other day. Oh man… hang on. The Internet stopped working again. Did Linksys release a lemon?

[tags]wireless,networking,network,linksys,wifi,wrt55ag,80211a,wireless a,home network[/tags]