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HomeComputersNetwork DevicesRouters & ComponentsCisco RV016 16-port 10/100 VPN Router - Multi WAN |
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|  | | | Customer Reviews: | | | Average Customer Review: ( 27 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 12 found the following review helpful:
 Very satisfied for the price. Mar 14, 2006
By Curtis Gomez
I use this router on our main network of about 40 permanent users and another 20 or so users (clients) that come and go. At any one time it is negotiating 50 to 65 users via DHCP through four 24 port managed switches about ten 4 to 8 port hubs and six WAP's. Clients come and go everyday, some with Mac's others with PC's and I never have to do anything to get them on the internet. In the two years it has been in service I think that I rebooted it once and I'm not positive that it was the problem since I will reboot the modem, switches and router together. Occasionally things do get turned off for maintenance, but looking at the router admin page right now it has been running 54 days straight. I have to say it is much more stable than other small routers that advertise delivering 99 DHCP address's but really can only deliver about 10 without having to use static IP's. It's powerful browser interface lets you manage port bandwidth, port function and port priority easily. Some departments need more or less speed or higher priority. Security notifications via email keep me on top of potential attacks. The effect on speed due to security features was negligible. The "Block WAN request" even keeps our own ISP from seeing us. All these things are simple to setup. As a basic router it is very powerful.
The only short coming that I see is with the load balancing. This seems to really slow the speed significantly. I think that it is just too much for the CPU to handle. My intention was to have two different ISP's for redundancy. As a fix I leave both providers connected but only activate one WAN port at a time. If one WAN goes down I can quickly activate the other WAN port without anyone really being affected. The other ISP is mainly used for FTP anyway.
On the problems with VPN's, we don't use them so I can't comment on that.
In closing, you could spend thousands to get some of the features that facilitate subnets and load balancing, for the price it works very well.
Update: I have since purchased a second RV016 (firmware 2.0.13) with the same solid performance. I've read about some of the problems that others are having and would say that compatibility with other vendors is an issue to consider. Also using switches versus hubs takes some of the load off the routers CPU.
Update 2: We now own three routers without problem. I know that some have complained about customer service and I have to agree it's lacking. But what I would tell less experienced users is that the Sitemap column on the right side of the browser interface has extensive explanations of all the settings. This combined with a little experimentation should get you where you need to be. The file sharing problems that another reviewer had has nothing to do with the router, it's all about the computer settings. Another reviewer commented on customer service asking about the color of the cables. In the early days of DSL and daisy chaining hubs, crossover cables were used and they were generally orange or yellow and will not work with most equipment.
10 of 10 found the following review helpful:
Mixed Jun 14, 2007
By Leonard Barshack
I have had the RV016 for a few years.
Overall I am somewhat mixed.
My biggest disappointment is with Linksys support. I had trouble configuring the dual WAN capabilities, and never got any help from Linksys. In the end I am using a single WAN (see below). I would expect much better, or at least some, support for an expensive router like this one.
Some applications got confused when I was using two WANs. I had this problem with 2 or 3 applications, so I suspect correcting it would be straightforward, but after HOURS of fiddling and calling Linksys help, I got nowhere.
The other surprise was that there is no way to be notified if one of the WANs goes down. I have dual connectivity for redundancy, but if one fails, there is no way to have the RV016 notify you.
I now keep both WANs plugged in, but only one port active. Someone needs to switch the connectivity in the event the primary WAN goes down.
On the positive side, I really like many of the advanced features:
* One-to-one NAT works well. My servers are both part of my LAN while having an outside WAN address
* I often remotely manage the RV016, including turning one and off various physical ports
* I found setting up VPNs to other gateways fairly straightforward.
Conclusion:
On balance there are enough features that work, or at least that I understand, that I am happy with the RV016. I do wish some of the other advertised features worked or were better documented.
6 of 6 found the following review helpful:
Quirky Router Sep 14, 2007
By N. Propps
We purchased the router for its multiple Internet (WAN) inputs for redundancy. While on the surface that works, it will cause problems with remote login via RDP when using dynamic IP addresses since you cannot be sure which IP the system will provide when you login and it can change often so RDP fails a great deal of the time even when using a Dynamic DNS service in the units software. You have to disable one of the WAN sources to get 100% reliability for remote RDP access which then defeats the purpose of the multi WAN option. Of course, if you do not need to login remotely using RDP, this may not be an issue for you.
We also had multiple bugs with the unit and have had to reset many times until we finally gave up and switched to a Netgear VPN Router which has not failed once. So my experience has been that Netgear is a more reliable product overall but Linksys has a few neat features including multi WAN inputs. If the unit would not act up and if tech support were better, it would increase its rating.
5 of 5 found the following review helpful:
 Rock Solid! Mar 16, 2006
By Suresh
I've been using this router for 8 months now and have had no problems with it. Unlike other Linksys products, I've never had to reset this one a single time because it had hung. Current uptime is 146 days. The last time I rebooted it was because a new UPS was being installed.
Load balancing works fine (I use 3 internet connections from 2 ISPs). P2PTP VPN works with from Windows & Macs with the built-in VPN client.
I wish there was a way to bind certain IP addresses to a specific WAN connections. Other than that I can't complain.
I'm using Firmware version 2.0.6. There is a newer version (2.10.0) which I will be installing over the weekend which promises even more features.
9 of 11 found the following review helpful:
Solid, Stable, Dig deep and you'll find a gem. Mar 23, 2005
By M. Quinn
When it came down to it, I closed my eyes and ignored my gut to buy the Watchguard v100($4000), just because I could not ignore the $400 price tag for this firewall/router. After 2 months in the full production, I realize this guy was a steal. The biggest asset is the port forwarding feature. This gem of a feature lets me serve up web content from my server farm behind a single IP address. (I also use a proxy, to work some magic...poof) I have not had any lock up issues (like the previous author...) granted I could have a new version of firmware. Yes it is true you might have to hold your nose when your around linksys wireless routers, but for some reason they managed to get their act together when they put this package together...For the record: The documentation clearly states that a max of 7 wan ports can be used.(I usually read up before I make a purchase)
See all 27 customer reviews on Amazon.com
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