Don't buy the Netgear...

[Troubleshooter]

...FVS318 router/VPN/firewall/switch.

Why do I know this? Let me tell you...

Hurricane Dennis and his collateral weather systems cost me one dial-up modem and two of the four ports on my router, the bastard. I scrambled to the Office Max where I have a gift card with the money from a previous return. After not seeing the router I wanted on the shelf, I went to what looked to be a better piece of equipment, feature wise, for only a little more money. After fighting with the settings for the better part of a day I went to the Netgear forums, and what to my wandering eyes did appear? A consensus, a consensus saying to stay thy hand from the Netgear FVS318.

So with limping router I returned to the web to warn others.

And in case anyone is considering giving me any lip about using surge protectors, the lightning struck less than 100 feet from my house. Maybe if I had my house set up like a faraday cage...