Netgear Dual-Band Router Offers Private Cloud

This "premium" router will share a USB printer across the network, or share files across the Internet thanks to its private "cloud" capabilities.

Monday Netgear announced the worldwide availability of its N600 Premium Edition (WNDR3800) wireless dual-band Gigabit router. This is the first Netgear home-based router for general consumers that offers the company's Clear Channel Selector tech for automatically and dynamically avoiding busy Wi-Fi channels, and its ReadySHARE Cloud service for easily and securely accessing personal files from anywhere.

"ReadySHARE Cloud transforms a USB hard drive or flash drive plugged into the USB port of the N600 Premium Edition into a private 'cloud' storage system for securely accessing and sharing files within the home network or across the Internet," the company said. "There's no need to go through the lengthy process of selecting a public file-sharing site and then uploading files, and no worries about privacy policies or what happens if the service suddenly goes out of business."

The router specs include a 680 MHz processor, 16 MB of flash memory and 128 MB of RAM. It also features "guest" access, support for the DLNA standard, support for expanded TiVo storage, four gigabit Ethernet ports, dual-band wireless-N for simultaneous speeds of up to 600 Mbps (divided between the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands), automatic Quality-of-Service, automatic Wi-Fi security, and even support for open-source firmware.

What's more, users can plug a printer directly into the router's one USB port and share it across the local network. There's also a dedicated wireless channel specifically for HD video streaming, and parental controls for keeping the Internet experience safe using flexible and customizable filter settings.

"The N600 Premium Edition brings a new level of sophistication to home networks," said Som Pal Choudhury, Netgear director of product marketing. "The unprecedented feature set of this advanced router makes wireless connections more reliable, breaks down the barriers to file-sharing in the cloud and much more – yet it's easy to set up and manage. This is the future of home networking, and it's here today."

Netgear's N600 Premium Edition (WNDR3800) router is now available worldwide from major retailers – in stores and online – at $179.99 in the United States. The ReadySHARE Cloud apps for iOS and Android devices are also available now at $2.99.