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  • buleyb - Thursday, August 31, 2006 - link

    After they got caught with those HTTP redirects in some of their routers in 2003, I really don't trust them. Plenty of good products from the company, but a router...I think not. Only use I see of them is to test the chipset they used...
  • Hypernova - Thursday, August 31, 2006 - link

    It this even legal?! The more I look at it the more it looked like a commerciallised ECM Chaffing weapon. This thing is devastating in an apartment.
  • Frumious1 - Thursday, August 31, 2006 - link

    I'm thinking of getting one just so I can nuke all the other wireless networks in an area. Hell, maybe I can set something up in a car and go cruising around town? Adds new meaning to the term "WAR Driving"! :D

    I <3 Gigabit Ethernet
  • lopri - Wednesday, August 30, 2006 - link

    BTW it seems like Gary writes all AT articles these days. What's Anand doing? :P
  • lopri - Wednesday, August 30, 2006 - link

    I wish this article came out like 2 weeks ago. I've just bought 2 Linksys -N routers (future-proof, anyone?): one for home, one for the office. :( The performance has been terrible indeed. My system rather connects to a neighbor's unsecured network due to consistent drop of this Linksys junk. I'm just hoping the neighbor is either ignorant or nice enough to not cut me off the internet. Of course I can't even think of connecting my main rig without worrying disconnects.

    quote:

    In our initial testing we have found that our Draft N equipment at times does not interoperate with each other at full speeds or fails to connect at all due to the differing chipsets utilized by the suppliers.

    This got me a little curious. I'm assuming these different Draft N routers may not communicate at the "N" mode, but they are fully compatible if you select the "G" mode. Are they?

    Talking about 802.11g, it'd be great if AT can test if these Draft N products have any advantage over current 802.11g products. (like G to G vs N to N)

    quote:

    The Linksys unit only supports Microsoft Windows 2000 or XP at this time.

    Works with Vista pre-RC1!
  • Gary Key - Thursday, August 31, 2006 - link

    quote:

    This got me a little curious. I'm assuming these different Draft N routers may not communicate at the "N" mode, but they are fully compatible if you select the "G" mode. Are they?

    The compatibility is just not there across the (G/N) board yet. We do have new Linksys, NETGEAR, and D-Link routers/cards coming that are suppose to show improvements. If they do, I still think it will be incremental at best. The majority of firmware and driver changes have been for compatibility issues with throughput only increasing a few percent. Our next roundup will be a quick review of the new routers with a more in-depth look at compatibility. I will say at this time that the NETGEAR PC card worked better with the Linksys router than the Linksys PC card did most of the time.

    quote:

    Works with Vista pre-RC1!


    Works with 5536 also. ;-) However, Linksys has not stated official support for Vista yet. :)
  • yyrkoon - Wednesday, August 30, 2006 - link

    Is this what 802.11i turned into ? Was supposed to offer a range of up to 50 miles, non line of sights, with speeds up to 50Gbit ( I think) was over a year ago when i read about it in wired magazine . . .
  • buleyb - Thursday, August 31, 2006 - link

    802.11i was the security (WPA2) standard, you're WAY off with that. If you're thinking more like WiMAX (802.16...), then that's the fast wireless at distance, but still not what this article is about...
  • gerf - Wednesday, August 30, 2006 - link

    "Fast Ehternet network"

    I'm not concerned, as there were drafts of "G" put out before it was official. If you're so ancy to get "N" then go ahead. At least you'll be funding/encouraging further development.
  • Wesley Fink - Wednesday, August 30, 2006 - link

    Corrected.
  • shoRunner - Wednesday, August 30, 2006 - link

    As hinted at in the article the overall reliability of these draft-n routers is terrible. Having setup 60+ wireless networks in the past few months using many different kinds of routers including these draft-n routers, they have performed very badly some models requiring daily powercycling and constant firmware updates. If you are looking for a reliable fast wireless network the netgear 240 pre-n router is definately the better buy.
  • Myrandex - Wednesday, August 30, 2006 - link

    The Dlink DGL-1000 router has gigabit ethernet and is freaking amazing. Not to mention I enjoy the blue LEDs on the frong, and performance is nice.
    Jason
  • blckgrffn - Wednesday, August 30, 2006 - link

    If were are going to sustain 300 megabit throughput on our wireless devices, why isn't the wired backend gigabit?

    Seriously, early adopters of this stuff are also likely to have gigabit networking equipment, as that has been shipping in volume for the at least the last three years or so, and really became affordable as far as switches go last year. My $30 D-link gigabit switch has been working just fine...

    Nat
  • bobsmith1492 - Wednesday, August 30, 2006 - link

    On page 2, the feature chart states the three routers have 2.4 GHz bandwidth... I believe that is actually their operating frequency.
  • erwos - Wednesday, August 30, 2006 - link

    The spectrum nuking issue is a real concern to me. I live in an apartment building, so I'm already getting crowded by random wireless phones and microwaves all around me. I _shudder_ to think what will happen when some of these "draft 802.11n" devices become more common. I wish I could claim this kind of callousness was because of 802.11n, but I know it's not true - the original channel bonding schemes for 802.11b/g were infamous for this kind of thing.

    I'm trying my best to be a good citizen and turn that sort of stuff off, but I fear I may to have move to 802.11a, and the less-troubled 5ghz band, soon.

    -Erwos
  • DigitalFreak - Wednesday, August 30, 2006 - link

    I moved to 802.11a a long time ago, after more and more b/g APs started showing up. Been running great every since.

    I really have to wonder why the IEEE didn't use the 5ghz frequency for 11n. I know 11a has a shorter range than 11b/g, but I would think it would be easier to overcome that problem than it is to get past the major spectrum issues in the 2.4Ghz range.
  • yyrkoon - Wednesday, August 30, 2006 - link

    Well, atleast not here in the US I mean.
  • yyrkoon - Wednesday, August 30, 2006 - link

    2.4GHZ isnt regulated, 5.8GHZ may be, I'm not sure.
  • Lonyo - Wednesday, August 30, 2006 - link

    802.11n might be useful in the home eventually as broadband gets faster (30mbps+ connections), but for real high speed networking, it seems wired is still the only option.
    Can't say it's so suprising, but at least wireless is getting more useful in terms of matching increasing broadband speeds (although with existing MIMO, .11n isn't quite so useful yet, until it can exceed MIMO).
  • LoneWolf15 - Wednesday, August 30, 2006 - link

    Are you kidding? There are far more reasons for high-speed wireless in the home than just broadband. Streaming media servers (having all my movies, music, etc. on a server that can be streamed to an HTPC or appliance) are a prime example of a good use of high-speed WiFi, especially for those of us that don't wish to deal with rewiring CAT-5 in our houses.

    As for .11n, it isn't useful yet because there isn't a standard, and yet vendors are trying to capitalize on a need by releasing hastily-designed pre-standard product. It's not robust, and it requires proprietary hardware. When the IEEE finally figures this out (IMO, it should have been some time ago, they've had enough time, though dealing with bickering vendors is an issue) and issues a true standard, things should work out better, much like when V.90 finally was ratified.
  • nullpointerus - Wednesday, August 30, 2006 - link

    It really depends on your specific situation, but personally I would not advise using WiFi for streaming media servers. Even with a Linksys WRX card in the client, we would still get occasional hiccups and be forced to pause the movie while the client's buffer refilled. And of course, I would often have to grab a USB keyboard to restart the client PC when it failed to deal with the periodic connection loss.

    Given the time I wasted troubleshooting that, wiring ethernet into the living room was a breeze. I simply unhooked the living room cable, taped the CAT-5e cable onto it, and used the slack to pull the CAT-5 cable down into the living room. Presto! Cable TV and CAT-5 on the same jack, and _no interference_. If you can do it, wiring for ethernet is a much better proposition than spending money on expensive MIMO wireless equipment.
  • LoneWolf15 - Thursday, August 31, 2006 - link

    Currently, I completely agree with you. My DVR is wired in through CAT5. (Note: Have used the Linksys SRX stuff and find it has its occasional quirks as well).

    I think that at the point high-bandwidth Wifi becomes more prevalent though, this may be less of an issue. I also think that they'll implement some sort of memory buffer as part of the networking hardware to get around your hiccup issue. It just isn't there yet. And as long as 11.n isn't fully ratified, I don't think it will be either. That's why I'd like to see the IEEE get off their rears and get this taken care of.

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