The Netgear WGT634U Wireless Media Router is the "third" generation of wireless kit for the home building on the success of their products in the UK market due in part to the increased rate of broadband take up. As well as extending the speed of the wireless technology to 108mbps through the 802.11g super wireless standard this is the first router available to the UK that allows storage to be directly attached to the network, this can be either USB memory or memory stick devices and with storage on USB at over 1gb it looks like a useful addition.

Applications like streaming MP3 files using the Netgear MP101 or SliMP3 player could really benefit from network attached storage plus the wireless super G gives an extended range of 200ft which in real terms should mean there is no room in your home where signal is degraded by passing through too many walls. Security has always been excellent within Netgear's routing products and the WGT634U is no exception with a double firewall including SPI (Stateful packet inspection) and the is NAT (network address translation) to allow you to make drives / directories accessible over the internet while keeping the rest of your network secure. This is also one of the first home wireless routers with DOS denial of service detection which is fed through to a very intuitive messaging system and administration interface allowing the user to work within their level of understanding while not restricting advanced users by trying to make things too simple.

The attached storage is simple to use too, once attached the USB 1.1 or 2.0 device appears as a network driver or folder allowing users to just drag and drop files using windows explorer, it should also be possible to use USB attached hard disks which would give a limitless storage capacity on your wireless network.

The Netgear WGT634U Wireless Media Router is also ideal for media streaming, the higher 108mbps speed which is available only between Super G devices allows for realistic streaming of video, even with standard 54g technology video could be jerky or have to run at restricted resolutions but with Super G a steady video of good quality can be relayed to a reasonable radius from the router. The speed does drop off with range and by the time you are at the limit of the routers capabilities your speed will be as slow as 6mbps, but within the average house 54mbits should be possible almost everywhere with high signal strengths allowing the full super G 108mbps.

Netgear have already won the CES best of innovations awards 2004 for the WCG634U wireless media router and on first showing it looks like the product to beat for the likes of Belkin and Alcatel and Linksys, at just £90 it never ceases to amaze us that manufacturers have managed to get the price of even this cutting edge router to sub £100 and its begs the question why would you now buy a standard wireless G router?

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