As for distance, the Netgear's 5GHz network produced a usable signal up to 38m away in our tests, but this will vary depending on your own environment.It is important to setup a static ip address in the device that you are forwarding a port to. That's a performance difference over 3MBps compared to when the 2.4GHz network was used exclusively. From 2m away, the 2.4GHz network produced a rate of 5.39MBps while the 5GHz network was being used to send data to a media streamer. However, we did notice a slow-down in performance when transferring data on both networks simultaneously. Overall, its performance in our set wireless tests and in our real-world scenarios, in which we streamed high-definition files over the wireless networks, was good. The close-up results are a little slower than expected, but the 10m results are solid and they compare well against other recent dual-band routers we've seen, such as the FRITZ!Box. Using the 5GHz network, the N600 recorded 8.09MBps from 2m away and 7.9MBps from 10m away.
Using the 2.4GHz network, we achieved transfer rates of 9.62 megabytes per second (MBps) from 2m away and 6.75MBps from 10m away. In our speed tests from 2m away and 10m away, the The Netgear N600 produced good results for the most part. You also have the ability to configure up to four profiles for each wireless network as well as easily set up guest networks so that users can access the Internet but not your local network. All you have to do is simply enter the SSID and passphrase for each network and you are set. Setting up both wireless networks is easy as the settings for both networks are on the same page.
Either way, having two wireless bands to play with allows a home network to be very versatile. Other scenarios might have the 2.4GHz network dedicated to gaming and the 5GHz network dedicated to file transfers. We were able to use one network (2.4GHz) for typical Internet usage and file transfers between computers, and the other network (5GHz) for streaming media. It supports simultaneous dual-band operation, which is perfect for segregating network traffic according to what it will be used for. We did both: we connected our main file server via Gigabit Ethernet and then connected numerous laptops using the 802.11n access point. You can connect computers to the Netgear N600 by using the Gigabit Ethernet switch on its rear, or by setting up its wireless access point. You can simply go through the 'Setup Wizard' and let the router auto-detect your ADSL2+ settings, or you can choose to configure the modem manually. The Netgear N600 is a reasonably easy modem to set up - if you're at all familiar with Netgear routers, you will know what to do - the Web interface on this model is the same as pretty much every other Netgear modem/router we've seen. It was a consistent performer, too, and we didn't experience any drop-outs or slow-downs throughout our extensive test period.
Using the PC World Broadband Speed Test with our iiNet ADSL2+ connection, the modem achieved a download rate of 16.2 megabits per second (Mbps), while the upload rate was 0.96Mbps. The Netgear N600 has a built-in ADSL2+ modem, which produced excellent speeds in our tests. It's perfect for distributing a high-speed Internet connection, sharing files, streaming media, online gaming and, most impressively, it can turn an ordinary USB hard drive into a makeshift NAS (network attached storage) device. Netgear's N600 dual-band wireless ADSL2+ modem/router (otherwise known as the DGND3700) offers more than just a way to get online - it's an advanced home networking solution.