Introduction

It took only a few years for broadband routers to move from slow, expensive ($300 or so), hard-to-configure beasts with small feature sets to zippy, (almost) auto-configuring, full-featured and even physically attractive products that are commonly available for under $50. You can imagine what this price drop has done to manufacturers' margins, and they're all on a quest to get you to part with more of your money.

Adding VPN "endpoint" features has been one way to squeeze more out of our wallets and has met with moderate success. But U.S. Robotics' USR8200 Secure Storage Router Pro has another "value proposition" to offer. It remains to be seen, though, how successful it will be at customer cash extraction.