Used
as a basic home Internet sharing device, the Gigabyte GN-B49GU functions very well, with
adequate bandwidth and reception over a quite decent range. Let's take a look at some of the
extra features that Gigabyte's router brings to the table:
The
majority of home routers we
have looked at are obviously intended more as Internet sharing devices than as
actual routers. While it may be theoretically possible to use them for routing
purposes other than connecting the Internet to your home PCs, it is seldom
practical due to the lack of needed information such as routing tables, and
little configurability. The Gigabyte GN-B49GU has no such flaws, and can be
considered an actual router, not a neutered 'Internet sharing' device.
For starters, you can easily set the WAN connection of the
GN-B49GU to a static IP address of your choosing, allowing connection to any
network you wish. Most home routers can accomplish this. Where it gets clever is that the
GN-B49GU allows you to set static routes to direct data traffic to networks more
than one connection away, in addition to using RIP (Routing Information Protocol) to learn about available
networks.
What this means, is
that instead of being restricted to channeling data between you and your ISP, Gigabyte's
router can actually be used internally in a small to medium sized network to separate various
subnets.
NAT (Network Address Translation, the mechanism used
to allow PCs connected to the router to access the Internet) can be turned off, as
you would want it to be for this role, and the ability to set
static firewall rules to admit or restrict certain types of data is the icing on the
cake.
This is a very cool feature set for a 'home'
device.
The built in
URL blocking feature worked fairly well and was easy to use. It
allows you to block specific addresses, or by a keyword like 'naughty.' As a test
we blocked out the keyword 'NBA.'
As you would expect, we were unable to access either the
NBA site or any NBA team sites, and the basketball section of the major sports
websites were off limits to us as well. We could sneak in the back door
with the sports sections of some newspaper sites, since the blocking applies
only to the URL (address line) and not the contents of the site. A great
feature for parents or concerned owners.
The VPN pass through function of
the Gigabyte GN-B49GU worked well, as we experienced no problem in configuring PPTP and
L2TP Virtual private networks to pass through the router's firewall.
Simply entering the internal IP address of the computer to receive VPN traffic
on the router and entering the router's address on the external computer
sufficed.
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