NETGEAR Brings Business Class WiFi Reliability and Private Cloud File Sharing to Home Routers

SAN JOSE, Calif., Aug. 29, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- NETGEAR®, Inc. (NASDAQGM: NTGR), a global networking company that delivers innovative products to consumers, businesses and service providers, today announced worldwide availability of the N600 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit Router – Premium Edition (WNDR3800), the first home router to offer Clear Channel Selector and the first to create private cloud file sharing through NETGEAR's new ReadySHARE™ Cloud service.

Clear Channel Selector, previously available only in more costly wireless routers for businesses, automatically detects when the WiFi channel currently in use becomes overcrowded and switches to another less-crowded channel. WiFi overcrowding is a growing problem as the number of WiFi access points proliferates and there's more competition for WiFi frequencies from household devices such as microwave ovens, cordless phones, baby monitors and from neighbors. Clear Channel Selector creates a more reliable home WiFi network by greatly reducing sudden disconnects and slowdowns, especially important for demanding applications such as HD video streaming, multi-player gaming and online voice or video chats.

ReadySHARE Cloud (www.netgear.com/readyshare) 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. 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. Instead, ReadySHARE™ Cloud makes it easy to designate which files and folders on the USB drive can be shared. These shared files can be accessed from any computer with an Internet connection, as well as through apps from NETGEAR for iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Android smartphones and Android tablets.

Installing and managing the N600 Premium Edition is a snap. There's no CD required for installation, and the router can be configured through a simple browser-based interface accessible on PCs, Macs, smartphones, the iPad and other tablets.

The N600 Premium Edition is NETGEAR's most feature-rich home router, built around a powerful 680 MHz processor backed by 16 MB of flash memory and 128 MB of RAM. Among the router's many advanced features are:

ReadySHARE Printer – USB printers plugged into the N600 Premium Edition can be accessed by any computer linked to the home network. There's no need to buy a new printer with built-in WiFi to print wirelessly.
NETGEAR Genie – a free computer software utility for monitoring, controlling and repairing the home network (available at http://www.netgear.com/genie).
NETGEAR Live Parental Controls – a centralized, flexible and reliable way for parents to control which web sites their children visit and what times of day they can go online, covering all devices on the network including Windows PCs, Macs, smartphones and tablets.
Guest network – allows visitors to go online without having to be given the home network password and without gaining access to computers, printers, storage drives and other home-network devices.
DLNA – supports the DLNA standard for streaming media to DLNA-enabled HDTVs, Blu-ray™ players and game consoles.
Automatic Quality-of-Service (QoS) – provides the best possible viewing experience for Internet video by giving priority to video streams over other home network traffic.
Expanded TiVo storage – for TiVo owners, a USB drive connected to the router can serve as extra storage for TiVo video recordings.
Fast wireless – dual-band wireless-N for simultaneous speeds of up to 600 megabits per second, divided between the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands.
Fast wired connections – Four high-speed gigabit Ethernet ports.
Automatic WiFi security – the router comes out of the box with wireless security turned on, so home WiFi networks are protected by default.
Open platform – do-it-yourself tech enthusiasts can tweak performance and features by installing open source firmware and joining the open router community at www.myopenrouter.com.


"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."

Pricing and Availability

The NETGEAR N600 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit Router – Premium Edition (WNDR3800) 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.