Intertex Surfinbird IX68 ADSL 2+ VOIP Wi-Fi gate review. Some products make VoIP easy.
<<<... ADSL lines are not likely to support 30 calls, even with the new ADSL 2+ which the IX68 supports, because of ADSL's low upstream rates. ADSL supports about 16 calls per Mbit/s of upstream data-rate, Intertex estimates, so heavy users are going to hook their LAN up to a bigger pipe, and use the IX68 as an Analog Telephone Adapter (ATA). ignore the ADSL provision in the SurfinBird, or use it as a backup. Much of this was beyond the scope of our review, but we checked out basic functions and came away very impressed.
Set-up and unpacking
The initial impression is small and cute. It's about six inches square, pale blue, and well provided with LEDs and buttons. There are LEDs for Wi-Fi (labelled "AIR"), the two phones, the phone line, the four Ethernet ports and the WAN - and a 3-digit LED screen that displays the security level of the firewall.
Swedish care was evident in the packaging - a neat multi-compartment cardboard box. Open one end and you find the unit cocooned in bubble wrap, with cables and quick-start instruction card in a separate slot.
Open the other end, and there is the power supply and the phone and cable adapters - including a nice Y-connector to put both phone and data into one socket on the back of the IX68. The quick-start card is brief and to the point - but can't do justice to the complexity of the user interface. Hence there's an "addendum" to the card, which at 20 pages, covers all the basics and might as well be called a short manual.
The context-sensitive help from the management screens is good. There's no CD in the box, so the manual is only available online and can be reached from a link on the first management screen (but only if you've already succeeded in setting up your WAN). Plugging power and cables was straightforward. We found the box ran very hot when flat - it packs a lot into a small space - and the card suggests standing it vertically. more>>>