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Feature Differences
The 855's feature set is the same as the 4500's with the exception of wireless configuration, which handles two radios instead of one. D-Link doesn't have an emulator up for the 855, but you can use the 4500 emulator to explore everything else in the admin interface.
Figure 5 shows the main Wireless Settings screen, which conveniently contains both 2.4 and 5 GHz radio controls. Like the 4500, the user interface does not indicate the extension channel used in 40 MHz channel mode, which I think it should.
Figure 5: Wireless configuration
The 855 continues the 4500's welcome feature of being able to enable/disable wireless on a schedule. This is nice touch to help keep your network secure during off-hours.
I thought it interesting that the 5 GHz radio defaulted to the 20 MHz channel width instead of the faster Auto 20/40, even though it didn't have to. The 2.4 GHz radio properly defaulted to 20 MHz channel width, as all Draft 2.0 802.11n Wi-Fi Certified products should.
Note that channels in the 5 GHz Lower (36, 40, 44, 48) and Upper (149, 153, 157, 161, 165) bands are available, whether or not you choose the Auto Channel Scan Wireless Channel option.
The 802.11 Mode selector provides just about all the options you would need to solve compatibility problems with "legacy" 802.11b/g clients. For 2.4 GHz you get:
- Mixed 802.11n, 802.11g and 802.11b (default)
- Mixed 802.11n and 802.11g
- Mixed 802.11n and 802.11b
- Mixed 802.11g and 802.11b
- 802.11n only
- 802.11g only
- 802.11b only
and for 5 GHz you get:
- Mixed 802.11n and 802.11a (default)
- 802.11n only
- 802.11a only
The Basic Wireless settings screen also provides access to Wireless Security settings, which include a full suite of WEP, WPA and WPA2 settings, with both "Personal" (PSK) and "Enterprise" (RADIUS) WPA/WPA2 modes. Security can, of course, be set separately for each radio.
I did a quick WPS pushbutton session check with D-Link's DWA-160 Xtreme N Dual Band USB Adapter—D-Link's only dual-band adapter. I carefully reset the router to defaults, which is important to get a good initial security setup (see Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) Need To Know).
I was able to get a Push-button WPS session to successfully complete with a WPA/TKIP secured connection to the 2.4GHz radio, even though both router and client support WPA2 / AES. I tried to get a WPS connection to the 5 GHz radio, but was unsuccessful. This could be due to the fact that both radios are set to the same SSID ("dlink" plus the last four LAN / WLAN MAC address characters).
Figure 6 shows the Advanced Wireless controls, which are no different from the 4500's. The WLAN partition only prevents wireless client-to-client communication. Unfortunately, there is no control to prevent wireless clients from communicating with wired LAN clients, as I found on D-Link's DAP-1522 [reviewed].
Figure 6: Advanced wireless configuration
User reviews
Average user rating from: 2 user(s)
Pricey, but well engineered, fast, stable, reliable. A notch above.
I've used wireless routers from Netgear (an 802.11g model, and an 802.11n model), from Linksys (WRT600N - 802.11n simultaneous dual mode), and now the D-Link DIR-855. My experience with this model is that it provides a level of stability that I had forgotten could exist. I had grown so accustomed to power-cycling my routers that it actually seemed like something was missing when I realized I hadn't needed to do so with this one in some time.
If you think a router is a router, and wireless-N is wireless-N, you'll probably skip this router because of its price. That's a shame, because its better-than-standard engineering is not going to be appreciated simply by looking at a box on a shelf at the electronics store. Its routing is indeed very fast. It does support jumbo frames where most home routers don't. It manages to go on for extended periods of time without needing to be reset or restarted. It has a rich feature set. And its dual-band simultaneous-use wifi radios are a feature that really ought to become standard.
The marketing for this router suggests using the 5GHz radio band for media streaming, and the 2.4GHz band for general computing. But there's another strategy that I like better: Use the 5GHz band for pure 'N' devices, and the 2.4GHz band for mixed-mode applications. I put my laptops on the 5GHz band, and my WiFi Blackberry, my wife's Iphone, as well as house guests on the 2.4GHz band. That keeps the 5GHz band pure, which allows it to run full speed. The 2.4GHz band I have configured to mixed g/n mode, which incurs a performance penalty. In this way I keep the high performance stuff on one band, and the low performance stuff on the other band.
This approach works best if devices such as BluRay player, media streamer, etc., are hard-wired rather than via WiFi.
Areas for possible improvement in future versions: It's getting to be about time that we start seeing five LAN ports, not four. Make Jumbo Frame support official. Make the USB storage option more like a true NAS link (don't require software to be installed on client computers, and do offer WAN-side FTP/Web access with password protection, of course).
Expensive - Unstable - Unreliable
Having very little knowledge about routers seeing as i had never owned one before i decided it would have been a good start by buying the top of the line product from a well known company. D-link was a company i had heard about and therefore i choose the DIR-855, but only after i had read reviews from various magazines that said it was a fantastic feature packed router!
Unfortunatly the router was sub par. My goal was to have all my movies on my desktop machine in the study and then stream them over the wifi to my laptop in the lounge room (which was connected to the TV). It worked for maybe a few weeks before i started to have problems with it. The signal would drop out, It would power its self off and then wouldn't turn back on again. It was all bad!
I then went onto the D-links DIR-855 forum looking for answers, but that forum was neither moderated nor used. Adding to the pain was that firmware updates for the device were almost non existent and when a new firmware was released the Update feature on the router didn't know it was there forcing me to do my own homework and a manual update.
After that i sent the router in for an RMA and recieved a router in return that was wore than the one i sent in. After telling D-link about the problem they said i should update the firmware and ther was nothing more they could do. So i threw it in the bin!
I suppose routers are a little hit and miss these days seeing as you can find a router with bad reviews, but with users who swear it's the best router ever. So i have now ordered an Asus RT-N16 which seems to be quite stable so i'm hoping i have a better experience with it.
The DIR-855 was the last D-link product i will buy until they get their act together. A $350 router should be a damn good router!
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