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Gadgets Belkin Completes Linksys Purchase
Shane McGlaun (Blog) - March 18, 2013 9:44 AM
Print 20 comment(s) - last by Samus.. on Mar 19 at 2:07 PM
Linksys name will live on

Back in late January of 2013, Belkin announced that it intended the purchase Linksys from Cisco. Cisco had originally purchased Linksys for $500 million in 2003 in an effort to gain access to the consumer networking market. That investment didn't work out so well for Cisco and the company began searching for a buyer last year.

Belkin announced on March 15 that it completed its acquisition of Linksys. Belkin will continue to manage Linksys as a separate brand and product portfolio, which means the Linksys name will live on as promised.


"Linksys has a rich heritage, a passionate customer base and a wide product line, all of which fueled our decision to acquire the company and our plan to maintain the Linksys brand," said Chet Pipkin, CEO of Belkin.

Belkin says that Linksys customers and retailers will continue to see new products carrying the name come to the market in the near future. Belkin says that several new announcements will be made sometime this spring.
 
Support will continue for existing Linksys products and all warranties that are currently valid will be honored on Linksys products.

Source: Belkin


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less choice
By chromal on 3/18/2013 10:25:06 AM , Rating: 4
That's too bad, brand acquisition always strike me as consumer-hostile. I've found Belkin brand UPSes and routers in the past have not been as reliable as I had hoped, and so I'm not a fan of this.




RE: less choice
By ShaolinSoccer on 3/18/2013 11:41:39 AM , Rating: 2
Me too. I have had problems with all routers except Linksys. Maybe this will just help Belkin start making better routers.


RE: less choice
By Spuke on 3/18/2013 11:56:19 AM , Rating: 3
I've had a different experience, I've had problems with all routers except D-Link. I won't touch Linksys with a 10 ft pole.


RE: less choice
By Samus on 3/18/2013 12:14:19 PM , Rating: 1
Any linksys router running ddwrt is the best option for consumer electronics. Some hardwareis obviously better than others (like the wrt310 that overheats without cooling to the legendary wrt54g v2) but the hardware is inexpensive and community supported.


RE: less choice
By cjc1103 on 3/19/2013 8:03:35 AM , Rating: 2
I have two Linksys WRT54G routers running DD-WRT for the last 4 years, no problems at all, they just work. I haven't done anything else to them, but you can't stack them on top of any other warm equipment like a switch or router, or they can overheat. Kudos to the guy who put a heat sink on his WRT54G CPU, that probably would help, you might also consider driling some air holes in the case to help cooling.


RE: less choice
By Reclaimer77 on 3/18/2013 5:51:05 PM , Rating: 1
Netgear > Belkin. By a mile.


RE: less choice
By seamonkey79 on 3/18/2013 6:01:32 PM , Rating: 2
I'm on the fence simply because I've had more Linksys routers die out on me than Belkin, but then I've almost always had a Linksys router, so I've had more of them TO die out on me... the Belkin worked, not very well, but it always had a connection at about 1/3 its rated speed. The Linksys routers I have always performed better, but tended to die a little quicker on me.


RE: less choice
By Samus on 3/19/2013 2:07:06 PM , Rating: 2
The majority of Linksys router (and general product) failures is actually the power adapter. It's just that nobody tests this and assumes the product died.

Their transformer quality is all over the map. I've seen Linksys use almost a dozen different suppliers in the last decade, and few of them have been Class 4 or 5, until recently. I've seen adapters buzz or have a rattle right out of the box.


Residential Class Routers just suck
By Spookster on 3/18/2013 1:31:18 PM , Rating: 2
With residential class routers costing less than $250 you get what you pay for, unfortunately. I've bought ones from just about every brand over the years from the least expensive to the most expensive and not one has lasted longer than a year before turning into a brick. I use business class routers at work alot and they rarely ever have problems but then again they usually start in the thousands of dollars. Just can't convince the wife that I need to spend a few thousand on a new router for our home network. Silly wives.




RE: Residential Class Routers just suck
By Spookster on 3/18/2013 1:36:16 PM , Rating: 2
And i've owned both a belkin and a linksys and both turned into bricks within a year. But with Belkin I would never consider buying again unless they change the initial page of the web based control panel where they provide alot of the info about your network right on the default page before you even login. Granted am experienced hacker could retrieve the info other ways but I don't want to publicly advertise that info to everybody.


RE: Residential Class Routers just suck
By bodar on 3/18/2013 5:33:48 PM , Rating: 2
You could disable remote admin, so that a hacker would have to be physically connected to your network, not just on your WiFi or connected to the WAN side.


RE: Residential Class Routers just suck
By Spookster on 3/18/2013 6:25:07 PM , Rating: 2
But then that becomes an inconvenience when managing my network because now I have to have a PC or laptop physically connected to the router which would affect where I can place the router in the house. I have it placed now where I get optimal coverage from anywhere in the house on every floor.


RE: Residential Class Routers just suck
By bodar on 3/18/2013 10:28:41 PM , Rating: 2
True. I still have a wired PC, so for me it's not a big deal. Although, I had a friend run ethernet cable vertically through the wall from the living room to my computer room, since the router is in the living room for WiFi and the PS3. Not every environment is the same.

Now that I think about it, I do find it odd that a router would even give you any info without having you log in to the admin console first.


By Spookster on 3/19/2013 1:13:32 AM , Rating: 2
And here is an example of how much information they give out to anybody who comes along. Quite shocking really.
http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t86/Blazindynam...


By bodar on 3/18/2013 10:32:57 PM , Rating: 2
I've had my Buffalo WHR-G125 for about 5 yrs now. Hasn't given me much trouble; very rarely needs to be rebooted. Stock firmware.


By cjc1103 on 3/19/2013 7:55:18 AM , Rating: 2
You don't have to spend $250 for a good home router. I bought an alix2d3 board from PC Engines about 3 years ago for about $100, loaded pfsense on it, and it has been running fine ever sense. pfsense has more features than you would ever need for a home based router, DHCP, firewall, NAT, QoS, there are plugins available for all kinds of things. The alixd23 board has three Ethernet ports, I use one for internet WAN (fiber optics 50Mbps from EPB in Chattanooga, TN), one for my internal LAN, and the other for a DMZ network (basically used for guest internet access, it is configured to deny access to the LAN). You could also setup vlans if you wanted to. This setup wouldn't be appropriate for a large enterprise, but it would be more than adequate for a small to medium size business, and works great for a home router as well.
http://pcengines.ch/alix2d3.htm


belkin network equipment
By kleinma on 3/18/2013 10:17:51 AM , Rating: 2
I am going to assume belkin will roll all their existing networking products into the linksys line.

I used to like linksys a lot, but its been downhill for a while. 50% of the time around here anyway, people get router/modem combinations from their ISP, so consumer router purchasing is way down. When I do need one, I have become a fan of dlink (they used to be crap, but have some nice products now) and sometimes netgear, although they have been hit or miss.




RE: belkin network equipment
By Nortel on 3/18/2013 11:09:27 AM , Rating: 3
WRT54GL with Tomato running strong since 2005. I even installed a HSF (without cutting any plastic!) to keep it cool. OC'ed the CPU and wireless wattage along with the extra long Linksys antennas.


no longer a fan
By thymara on 3/18/2013 10:57:00 AM , Rating: 2
I've had several linksys routers and they have eventually all failed with the same problem - wireless quits working. Will not be acquiring another Linksys so sorry Belkin.

My ISP supplies a router but also makes mods to it making it difficult for me, particularly wrt security.

I currently have a 3 router setup, a thompson from my ISP which they have not modified, an asus and an apple via time capsule. this entire setup could be replaced by just the time capsule but I don't feel like making the effort at the moent.




RE: no longer a fan
By Pneumothorax on 3/18/2013 1:07:41 PM , Rating: 2
I dunno if your ISP allows admin access into their router, but FIOS does and I quickly disabled the crappy wifi on the FIOS router. I then switched my Linksys into wireless bridge mode. Much better wifi coverage along with the coveted 5ghz band as 2.4ghz is basically useless in my neighborhood.


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