In this era of the rapid growth of telecommunications the problem of the last mile is among the most urgent ones. It's when you have to connect some remote location to the global communication infrastructure. One possible solution is offered by ADSL technology which allows for high-speed data-transfers along telephone networks which are deployed virtually everywhere. In the last few years of its development this technology underwent some changes that had a positive effect on its data-transfer speed as well as connection reliability. ADSL-compatible devices have been evolving, too, from classic Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexers (DSLAMs) to IP-based DSLAMs, from simple modems to ADSL routers.

Today, such routers are widely available on the market along with ordinary ADSL modems and differ from common routers in having an ADSL rather than Ethernet interface on their WAN port.

This article is about one such ADSL router, the ASUS AM604g model. It is a SOHO-class device endowed with only basic functionality like routing traffic inside a local network and to the outside world, connecting to client devices via Wi-Fi, accessing the external network via ADSL. This should suffice for a majority of SOHO users, though.

Such devices have long been available from ASUS, and the AM604g has come to replace the AAM6020VI which is out of production now.

Let's now see what it can do.

Specification and Accessories

The box contains:

• AM604g router
• Brief user manual
• Full user manual on a CD
• Phone cable
• Category 5 Ethernet cable
• ADSL splitter
• Power supply (15V, 1A output)

The accessories are quite sufficient for a device of that class. There is nothing missing here.