ZyXEL P660HN-F1Z

ZyXEL P660HN-F1Z
Price from: £50
WAN: 1 ADSL 1/2/2+ (RE ADSL)
LAN: 4 10/100, NAT
VPN: pass through only
Firewall: SPI, DoS, DSI, DMZ and keyword content filtering
Wi-Fi: 802.11b/g/n WEP/WPA/WPA2
Additional ports: None
Power Supply: Internal
Power Consumption: 8W typical
Size 189x132x42
Weight 0.365Kg

The ZyXEL P660HN-F1Z is an ADSL2+ router with lots of extra features that make it interesting to the small to medium business application.

Its main claim to novelty is that it has a button on the top that can be used to switch off the Wi-Fi. This is a handy and reassuring way of making sure that no one can access the network when you don’t want them to. The button also doubles as a way of initiating WPS to automatically install client devices that also support WPS.

Management is via a web interface but you also have the option of using the command line via Telnet or a special configuration server. The indicator LEDs show when the DSL line is working and when the device has an IP address.

There is an Internet setup wizard that will walk you through the stages of setting up the ADSL connection to an ISP. After setting up the Internet connection the wizard then goes through setting up the Wi-Fi connection including security settings. Wi-Fi security includes WEP and WPA1/2.

There are lots of more advanced options that the wizard doesn’t take you through. For example, you can set up multiple connection points – essentially ISP accounts. There is also an option to set up a WAN backup; it tests that there is an ADSL connection and can be set to redirect traffic to a nominated IP address, i.e. the backup gateway.

Next page: LAN and Wi-Fi setup and image gallery