Linksys WRT54GC Wireless Router

It worked fine for a year, disconnecting at random intervals like all routers, but not too much. Then the problems began. One day out of the blue, it would connect locally, but not to the Internet, no matter how many times I reset it. My ISP walked me through all the troubleshooting they could, then determined it was a defective router and suggested I call Linksys because they had "award-winning customer service".

The Linksys service personnel are in India and Korea. They are abrupt, unhelpful, and barely intelligible. They are rule-bound, in that when I suspected that the SECOND router they sent was defective, they told me that it was out of warranty and would not even help me troubleshoot it. It was a refurbished one and someone (probably the same person who also neglected to fix its problems) forgot to change the serial number in the Linksys system. It took three people just to solve that problem, and another hour to try to troubleshoot it before determining that it was, in fact, defective.

The next one arrived, brand new, and I made the mistake of upgrading the firmware on it because it wasn't working as it should. Don't do that. It is a known issue (according to their award-winning customer service) that their firmware "upgrade" turns their routers into switches, destroying their WiFi capabilities. If it is a known issue, why post it on the official site? No one could answer that, but they did offer to send me a THIRD router, which was also defective.

Now the FOURTH one they sent is the wrong one, and I'm never going to bother with Linksys again. It takes 10 days or more from the initial phone call until receiving the replacement unit, no matter if you are on their "hot list" or not. It has been over a month since I have used a working router, courtesy of Linksys' award-winning customer service. Save your money and your sanity. Buy ANYTHING else, but don't buy Linksys.