Question 1

Is this a wifi router or a range extender? I'm so confuse

Accepted Answer

It is neither.  The WNCE4004 is a high speed (dual band 450 mbs) wireless access point that can connect up to four ethernet enabled (wired internet access) devices to your router at up to 450mbs. It is similar to a USB wireless N device you plug into your computer to connect your computer to a wireless router.  The WNCE4004 does the same thing for multiple devices that you connect to the WNCE4004 with ethernet cables.

So, if you had a home entertainment setup with a internet enabled Television and an internet enabled blu-ray player and a separate Apple TV or Google TV like device that had only wired ethernet (as opposed to wireless) internet access, you could connect up to 4 such devices to the WNCE4004 and it would give them a shared wireless N connection to your existing wireless N router (also if you had older internet enabled devices that had only a wireless B or G capability or 150 mbs or 300 mbs wireless N capability, you could connect them through the WNCE4004 and theoretically obtain a higher bandwidth wireless N connection to a 450 mbs capable wireless router!).

Note that this would be a shared connection so if you use two or more of the devices connected to the WNCE4004 at the same time, there would be a degradation in performance.  However, This particular device has dual band 450 mbs capability so if you had a high end wireless N router that also had that capability, you could/should (in an ideal world) get acceptable performance from two devices accessing the internet via this device at the same time.

It is important to stress that the wireless performance you achieve will be totally dependent on the level of wireless bandwidth provided by whatever router you use to connect to the WNCE4004 (and how far away from the router the WNC4004 is placed!).  If your router supports only a lower bandwidth (300 mbs or 150 mbs or less), that will be the maximum bandwidth you can hope to achieve using the WNCE-4004.

Hope this helps

Question 2

Will it work with an AC router?

Accepted Answer

Yes but.... This adapter operates on the 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz bands and supports B,G,N technologies. Since AC routers are also required to support B,G,N it will work but not at the 1.3Gb/sec speed defined by AC. I have found the sensitivity on the 5Ghz band to be disappointing compared to the 2.4Ghz band. I bought this adapter with the intent of moving some of my streaming devices off from the 2.4Ghz band to the 5Ghz band but the signal strength would not permit a reliable connection. It seems to work fine at 2.4Ghz so that's what I'm stuck with for now. All in all the device should work OK with your AC router as long as you're not looking for AC speeds.

Question 3

Are the dual channels concurrent, or is it one channel at a time only?

Accepted Answer

You can't connect to both 2.4 and 5 @ same time. One or Other. Plus even if you connect @ 450Mbps Wireless it only has 100Mbps wired ports on it.

Question 4

The WNCE4004 can connect up to 4 wired devises.. my question is, if i have more than 4 Ethernet wired devises i would like to connect to Wifi, could i be able to use multiple WNCE4004 to give me a perfect outcome without interference?

Accepted Answer

I currently have two working without any issue.  One in basement and one on second floor. Router is in the middle on the first floor.

Question 5

One question I am not seeing in the specs on this site or Netgear's:
Are the ports on the device on a 4 port switch or is it a repeating hub? I do hope it is a switch, and I am currently presuming that is so.
Thanks in advance.

Accepted Answer

It is not a WIFI range extender or repeating hub. 
It is an adapter (WIFI receiver) with an integrated 4 port switch. 
Works great;  I have TV, Roku, WD media player, and Slingbox connected to it at a location where before, I  had to have range extender to get 2 of above devices to work wirelessly.
hope this helps

Question 6

If the ethernet ports are 100Mbps, what is the benefit of connecting to "up to 450Mbps"?

Accepted Answer

In theory since there are 4 100mb/s ethernet ports the 450mb/s could be consumed by simultaneously streaming to multiple devices. In practice, it's unlikely you'll get more than 150 to 250 mb/s. At this moment mine is running at 136mb/s but that varies a good bit depending on what I'm doing. I am running 2 Roku streaming devices to a Plex NAS server, a smart TV and a Home Theater PC off of the link and it seems to keep up OK. All but the HTPC are MP4 transfers. The HTPC is MPeg2 1080i.

Question 7

Can this devise be used as a range extender. Not just as a hub for non wireless devices?

Accepted Answer

No, it's not a range extender.  It functions as a bridge.  Meaning the WNCE4004 will allow up to four devices with RJ-45 Ethernet connector to access your wireless network.

Question 8

I would like to know if this device can be used with a Verizon Jetpack Mobile Hotspot to connect a couple of laptops and a wired ethernet printer/scanner so that the laptops could access the Internet as well as the printer/scanner?

Accepted Answer

If your mobile hotspot has Wifi connection for multiple local devices, I would think it may work with this adapter. But I have mine connected over Wifi to a local router, and I would recommend using the hotspot to feed a local router, instead of using this adapter straight to the hotspot.

Question 9

So is this making more WiFi range as well as connection?

I thought this was a router but I was blind.. if this makes my PC's internet speed better than now, it would be great but since there's no mention about PC, I am so depressed......(price was awesome though)

Accepted Answer

I am not sure what you are trying to ask but I will tell you that youcan hook up to the AP via WiFi or Ethernet cable. It is not a router, but simply a way to extend betworks or allow non-wireless devices tobe connected through Ethernet. So, it will extend a wifi network if you put it between you and the router as long as the AP can receive the router’s signal. You can also extend range of any AP or WiFi router by putting it up high & eliminating how many walls the signal has to go through, FYI. After 4 walls (or metal objects — refrigerators, plumbing — in the way) most signals slow considerably in my experience.

Question 10

Is this a wireless to wired network bridge? Can I connect my wired only security system so that it can access the internet via the Uverse router? 
Can I remotely access my connected wired devices remotely using a mobile device?

Accepted Answer

Any devices you connect to the Ethernet ports of this Netgear device need to be configured as wired devices.  Your connected equipment doesn't know that this Netgear is going over the wireless connection back to your router.

Questions & Answers