Linksys Router Comes Up Short

It’s not a big surprise to discover that a product in the real world does not quite measure up to the claims in its performance specs. But one reader was nonetheless a bit shocked to find that his Linksys wireless VPN router can’t support even a fraction of the 50 VPN tunnels it’s supposed to do, and that no one at Linksys seems to care.

“I think this fits in with the ‘phantom’ features you’ve been discussing,” the reader recently wrote me. “I am a local independent systems integrator, working in computers since the days of CPM, Novell 2.12, etc. I work by referral only and my customers include multibillion-dollar international corporations, state governments, and small professional offices. I like Linksys equipment and often recommend it to my smaller clients who can’t afford or need real Cisco gear off the bat, particularly since Linksys has a trade-up program to Cisco equipment. I have been using the WRV54G VPN for any of my small clients who want to use a few VPN connections and have placed at least a dozen of them.”

While the reader would not have recommended the WRV54G for a client who wanted to connect dozens of users, he was aware that the ability to “connect up to 50 remote or traveling users” was a touted feature of the device on Linksys webpages and in product reviews. “The third bullet point on the Linksys web site is the ability of the WRV54G to support 50 roving VPN tunnels, but until now I have not had a client want to use more than five VPN tunnels enabled out of the box. Then I placed a unit with a customer who originally told me he wanted to set up three remote users. The president of the company saw how well it worked and now wants to deploy it to the entire staff — 16 mobile users or so.”

Since it’s rated to do 50, the reader assumed 16 users would not be a problem. “I called Linksys to find out the process to upgrade the unit to 50 users. Nowhere in the documentation did I find that any special parts or software (or additional cost) was required to use the 50 clients and there is no asterisk by the 50-VPN support either. This is where the fun started. Online tech support chat referred me to sales. My first call to sales results in getting transferred after a couple of long holds and bounces around to different folks, I get to a nice ‘product specialist’ who could ‘certainly’ help me and promised a call back shortly.”

When the reader hadn’t heard back from that product specialist, the next day he called back and went through the same process of bounced around he was connected to another tech. “After a very long wait on hold, I was told that the part number for the software I needed was QVPN50, but it’s only available from partners and not Linksys directly,” the reader wrote. “My client got his WRV54G from Dell and they don’t list QVPN50 as a part number. And, oh, by the way, I was also told by the Linksys rep that even if I got it, it wouldn’t work. My best bet was to call customer support and RMA it for a refund and use something with more tunnels out of the box, he said. I immediately called customer support again and asked if this was true. I spoke with several tech support engineers and not one had actually configured this device with more than five users. I asked to speak with an engineer who had actually configured the unit this way. Finally given a case number, again I was promised a call back the next morning.”

Of course, by the next evening he had not gotten the promised call. “I called again and went into the tech script readers asking to speak with some one who had made this router work with 50 users,” the reader wrote. “After getting told that ‘this problem is out of the scope of my abilities’ and that ‘the router and VPNs are working, so what is your problem,’ and again and again ‘OK, please hold,’ I was a transferred to a dial tone I had all I could take for one day, so the next called back with my case number and began again.”

“All I keep asking for is to get to talk to an engineer what has actually made this work, see a screenshot of the web route interface status page that shows tunnels 15 – 20 connected, or get the firmware so I can test it myself,” says the reader. “The QVPN software is apparently about $120, which I will gladly pay … if it works. I don’t want to put my client through having to buy a new unit and RMA the WRV54G if I can avoid it. But after asking countless Linksys reps if they have actually done this, and only getting ‘no, but my buddy has’ or ‘no, but my supervisor says it will work,’ I am skeptical to say the least.”

A few weeks after I first heard from the reader, he’s decided he has no choice but to get his client another router. “I have been unable to reach any resolution, and now all my calls to Linksys are sent into voice mail hell,” he wrote. “I find it incomprehensible Linksys can’t or won’t provide an engineer who has made this work, or a screenshot or the firmware for me to test. I know I have spent way too much time on this, but my work and my word are on the line. I take care of my clients. I used Linksys’ product information to sell their product, and I feel I’ve been left out to dry.”

Has a vendor left you without a promised feature? Post your comments about your experiences on my website or write me at Foster@gripe2ed.com.

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