VoIP-enabled wireless router

Review: D-Link DVA-G3340S voice-enabled router

A product best suited to large-scale rollouts to multiple branch offices - if you can agree a good price

Written by Peter Judge

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This article is part of a group review of six voice-enabled Wi-Fi routers

D-Link does not have a listed product in this category, so it sent what it describes as a “special project” item. In the UK, the DVA-G3340S is only available in bulk. It is primarily aimed at large enterprises or network operators that want to roll out large numbers of devices for a particular project or service. The product is only available to individual end-users in Australia and New Zealand.

The box is solid but rather old-fashioned looking. Firmware upgrades tend to be fairly infrequent for this type of product, and the user interface is one that the vendor has stopped using on its mainstream products.

This type of product is designed to be shipped pre-configured by a systems integrator. This is probably just as well. While the Wi-Fi and DSL management screens are usable, the VoIP screens are not. There is a welter of unrelated and unexplained data fields, no help and no support in the on-disk manual. Even after a firmware upgrade, the box would not accept our VoIP account details. That said, a competent systems integrator should be able to sort this out, although it’s unlikely to be much fun.

Aside from this, the Wi-Fi implementation was usable, if lacking in bells and whistles. The box had plenty of tweakable networking functions like VPN support, and the firewall was exposed. There is no USB port on the device.

Wi-Fi security was usable, with WPA supported, using both PSK and 802.1x certificates. Overall, the box showed that D-Link has the nous to make a decent integrated gateway, but has not seen the need to make a thorough-going product yet. This might be worth using for the aforementioned “special projects”, but only if D-Link offers a good enough deal.

Next review: Draytek Vigor 2800VG

Product overview

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Ratings

  • Overall rating: 2
  • Features: 2
  • Performance rating: n/a
  • Value for money: n/a
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Verdict

Big and old fashioned, the DVA-G3340S provides a hint of what D-Link could do if it put its mind to it. Companies would need the services of a systems integrator to get the best out of it.

Pros: Solid Wi-Fi

Cons: Poor VoIP set-up; no USB; bulky

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VoIP-enabled wireless router

Group review: VoIP-enabled Wi-Fi routers

IT Week Labs tries out six solutions for bringing low-cost IP telephony to branch offices   More...

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