9 Comments

    1. Yes, I know. But apparently the infrastructure is separate, because the Linksys worked and the Belkin is still down.

    2. Kinda hilarious that they just passed the buck to Google’s DNS servers, but I don’t think it’s possible that Belkin bought Linksys, since Linksys is a Cisco subsidiary.

  1. I don’t know what feature Belkin routers offer that are so compelling that it requires the constant availability of a specific Belkiin URL (heartbeat.belkin.com, the unreachability of which is apparently causing all these issues). A router should require nothing more than a working internet connection to function properly.

  2. I have a Network Everywhere NWR11B (LinkSys) since I can’t remember exactly when, sometime back in the early 90’s? Still working. Had it in Ohio using Time Warner Cable and in South Carolina with Comporium Cable and Horry Telephone.

  3. I guess I’ve only had it since about 2003, that is when it got FCC approval. Now I remember I had a computer running NT as a router in the 90’s.

  4. Belkin attempts to verify the routers connection to the Internet to determine status and many provide a “user friendly” web page by re-direction of dns to an internal web server when there is a problem. The idea works fine as long as the “well known site” is alive and well. This also provides some security against “man in the middle” attacks using DNS.
    Also, Windows 7 and 8 do exactly the same scheme to determine the icon for network connection and firewall requirements for public connections.
    Belkin has been around a long time, started initially as a company that made cables. I always considered Belkin network appliances as higher quality than LinkSys. During the time Cisco owned LinkSys it seems not much technology flowed between the two divisions. Some of the current home WiFi routers perform better than commercial systems costing thousands did just a few years ago. We are spoiled to cheap and reliable equipment.

  5. I was going to post something snark-ish about “Why You Should never Buy a Belkin Router”.

    Just now I see on Slashdot: http://tech.slashdot.org/story/14/10/07/1931201/belkin-router-owners-suffering-massive-outages

    “ISPs around the country are being kept busy today answering calls from frustrated customers with Belkin routers. Overnight, a firmware issue left many of the Belkin devices with no access to the customer’s broadband connection. Initial speculation was that a faulty firmware upgrade caused the devices to lose connectivity, but even users with automatic updates disabled are running into trouble. The problem seems to be that the routers “occasionally ping heartbeat.belkin.com to detect network connectivity,” but are suddenly unable to get a response. Belkin has acknowledged the issue and posted a workaround while they work on a fix.”

  6. The reason why I manually install my updates is because I don’t like things happening to my computers that I don’t control. But these routers apparently update themselves without ANY control. You can’t turn it off. My brand, spankin’ new Belkin suffered the same thing. Thankfully, the techs at Comcast had been deluged with calls about it and were able to talk me through the quick fix, since I couldn’t SEE the Belkin website with their fix-it page. I also learned that about 20% of all routers in the country are Belkin.

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