Mixed Signals
Any sufficiently advanced information is indistinguishable from noise
Wednesday 27 February 2008, 1:52 PM
802.11-ngratitude
This hasn't worked out too well.
The journalists are already well configured with wireless networks - and what happens if you drop an 802.11n (draft) wireless router in among a nest of 802.11g devices? Best case - absolutely nothing changes. You might get more range, but we're journalists: we live in tiny hovels rather than the sort of vast American mansions where 802.11n (draft) makes a difference.
Worst case - you spend an evening reconfiguring your network, copying across your firewall rules, plugging stuff in and out, and it still doesn't work properly. Last time I checked, I had ten devices on my home LAN: you don't want to poke that with a stick until you've got a new hoop for it to jump through.
Hardly a win-win proposition. There might be some point if any of us had any other 802.11n (draft) gear (which, almost universally, we don't) or if the router supported the newer, uncrowded 5 GHz band as well as the 2.4 GHz band. Everyone wants to try that out, to the extent that we'd rootle around to get the gear together. But the router doesn't do that, so we can't.
Of course, we're journalists. Not normal people. Normal people may have a reason to upgrade to an 802.11n (draft) router. If you're a normal person and have such a reason, let me know. But of the three hacks I know who have copped a router, none is planning to install it any time soon. Ingratitude or common sense? You decide.
My router's going to go into the labs and wait for the next bunch of 802.11n (draft) kit to come in, for interoperability testing. (unless you do have a really cool reason you need one - drop me a line, and who knows...)
(PS: On closer investigation, this reticence may have proved useful. The routers come with American power supplies, of the sort that adapt American mains voltage to router-friendly DC, and European mains voltage to a loud bang and the gentle savour of fried electrolytic capacitors. Broadcom's PR is sending out new gear, this time without Hack Assassination Mode enabled.)
(PPS: The pocket Etch-A-Sketches included with the router, however, are superb.)
PreviousComments on this post
Hi Rupert, gosh, several things to comment on in that excellent blog posting... First, I'm surprised that anyone still ships non-switching power supplies, I thought the "worst case" was just the ones that come with U.S. plugs only, and you had to go find your own plug adapter. I haven't blown up a 110v power supply in quite a while!
Second, I might be what one would consider a "normal person", at least in the way I use things, although I do tend to pick up some of the nice new toys very early. As I mentioned in my blog, my new Lifebook laptop came with a built-in Intel 4965AGN wireless adapter, so I decided to get a new router to try it out. I've had it installed for a couple of months now, and I have several different kinds of WiFi devices around the house, so I suppose I have some good interoperability experience:
- Why bother with Wireless-N? In my case, it is primarily related to the fact that Swiss houses are built to withstand nuclear attacks, mine is 4 floors and the router is on the top floor, and I want to use the laptop in the living room on the ground floor, which means there is a LOT of concrete and steel reinforcing bars between the laptop and the router. So I am primarily after the extended range.
- My original Linksys WRT54G router basically couldn't reach the living room at all, even with "High Gain Antennas" and an antenna extension cord so I could put them right at the top of the staircase.
- My next router, a Linksys WRT54GX4 with "SRX400 Speed and Range Extension" was able to reach the ground floor, but only with medium signal strength. I also got a Linksys WPC54GX4 PCMCIA adapter and a WUSB54GX4 USB adapter. That all worked fairly well until I started trying Vista on my laptop, and Linksys informed me that they were not going to make Vista-compatible drivers for any of the SRX400 adapters!
- In January I got the Linksys WRT350N router. The signal strength is indeed better, even compared to the SRX400 router; I typically get Good or Excellent signal on the ground floor. The compatibility has been very good; once I found out that you have to have WPA2 security to get >54 Mbps connection, the Intel adapter has been connecting consistently at 130 Mbps. I also have a Roku SoundBridge, which connects just fine. The slightly odd/disappointing thing is that the previous generation Linksys SRX400 adapters (PCMCIA and PCI) don't get anything better than 54 Mbps from the Wireless-N router. Of course they are not Wireless-N adapters, but I would have hoped that Linksys would include legacy support for them. Ah well. Oh, and my older laptop has an Atheron wireless adapter, and it also connects to the new router at 54 Mbps with no problem.
- Finally, I got a new WMP300N PCI adapter for my partner's new desktop, and it connects to the new router at 300 Mbps - or at least that is what it claims, I have learned to be skeptical of Linksys reported connection speed, sometimes it suspect that they report the "maximum" speed, even if they aren't really getting it.
- I initially had some problems with losing the connection, especially from the USB adapter, but Linksys support gave me new firmware for the router which isn't released yet, and that appears to have fixed the problem.
So, my bottom line so far is, if you need the extended range, with any equipment, or you need the higher speed and you have any kind of Wireless-N adapter, it is definitely worth it.
Kind of long-winded, but you asked for it!
jw
Hi there J A
Looking at the specs of the routers you mention, it seems like you are still on the 2.4GHz band.
I tend to agree with Rupert, that I'm not likely to move to 802.11n until I can get a reasonably priced dual-band router, to take advantage of the 5GHz band.
My house only has three stories, and 802.11g is easily good enough so far, to connect about four 802.11g PCs throughout the building.
It gets a good connection (ie one that is faster than my broadband uplink) from the router on the ground floor to my wife's study at the back of the top floor.
Changing to 802.11n might improve the penetration to the furthest reaches of the building but, as I understand it, with that many 802.11g clients, throughput in the 2.4GHz band would come down to a lowest common denominator.
Hi Peter, I'm looking at the setup screen for the WRT300N router now, and it looks like you are right, it is still on the 2.4 GHz band, but to be honest I don't understand exactly what it does or how it uses the various bands. What I can select, and what the help explains about it, is:
- Radio Band: Wide 40 MHz or Standard 20 MHz, the help says that for best performance when using Mixed N/G/B to select Wide, but for G/B only, select Standard
- Wide Channel: Select any from 3-11, help says that if you selected Wide previously, this will be your primary N-channel
- Standard Channel: Select 4 or 8, help says that if you selected Wide, this will be the secondary channel for Wireless-N connection.
So what it looks like to me is that they want to use two different channels for N and B/G connections, probably to avoid the conflict and slow-down that you mention. But that is only my guess, and I have never looked at any other Wireless-N router to see if this is common practice.
