BEST Wireless Routers

STaN

Heres a roundup of the best Wireless routers out there that can provide a wireless network in your home/office and share out a WAN connection (DSL/ISDN/Cable) to your PC(s).

http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,112866,pg,1,00.asp

(You will need a seperate modem [with an ethernet port] to connect these to the WAN)

Ripwave

Originally posted by STaN
Heres a roundup of the best Wireless routers out there that can provide a wireless network in your home/office and share out a WAN connection (DSL/ISDN/Cable) to your PC(s).

http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,112866,pg,1,00.asp

(You will need a seperate modem [with an ethernet port] to connect these to the WAN)

Gotta wonder what all that 54MB hoopla is all about:

Model           ;  LAN speed

Netgear WGR614    23,964 kbps
Linksys WRT54G    17,302 kbps
Belkin F5D7230    22,217 kbps
Buffalo WBR-G54   22,310 kbps
D-Link DI-624     17,802 kbps
U.S.R. USR8054    27,309 kbps

And these speeds were measured under ideal conditions (less than a foot between the wi-fi card and router), in a "Ramsey Electronics STE5000 Shielded Test Enclosure to eliminate electromagnetic interference"!

Here's a couple of quotes from the article:
"Because you will likely encounter the environmental variables we eliminated, your real-world performance with any of these kits will probably be lower".

"we saw performance variation as high as 40 percent from the same wireless kit in the same location, depending on the day and time."

Don't get me wrong - if you only want wi-fi because you can't easily run a cable from your DSL connection point to your PC (or you have two PCs in different rooms, and you want to share the DSL connection), or you really want to roam around with your laptop in the house, wi-fi is a good solution. But if you expect to be transferring lots of files around on your LAN, it might be a disappointment. If you don't intend using it between PCs much, you might save a few euro by going with 802.11b which is still 8 to 10 times faster than your DSL connection.

Here's the conclusion of the article in full:

Here are five reasons to stay cabled.

Usability: As reader feedback and our own testing confirms, setting up Wi-Fi can be tricky and annoying.

Price: Most PCs these days come with built-in ethernet ports, and if you don't need to rip out walls, running cable is cheaper.

Security: The new Wi-Fi Protected Access security is better than the original Wired Equivalent Privacy, but WPA availability remains spotty, especially for PCs not running Windows XP. Even an unencrypted wired connection has a measure of security in that a would-be hacker has to gain physical access to the network.

Consistency: Interference can slow down or even kill a Wi-Fi signal, especially in areas where several Wi-Fi networks overlap. This is less of a problem for 802.11a products than for 802.11b and 802.11g networks, which share the 2.4-GHz portion of the spectrum with other devices such as Bluetooth products, cordless phones, and microwave ovens.

Bandwidth: Though more than adequate for browsing the Internet on a shared DSL connection or for occasional file transfers, wireless throughput may not suffice for people who, like Gerughty, must frequently move large files between PCs. There's a reason that gigabit ethernet is gaining popularity--it's up to 90 times faster than an 802.11g connection.

Capt'n Midnight

Anyone know of a wireless router which can have NAT disabled on the WAN port ??

54g - it's like with phone lines and modems - if your line is noisy a 56k modem won't go any faster than a 28.8k or if you live in parts of county Dublin 14.4k

Re the test conditions - were these not too close together by the sound of it saturating/overloading the receivers ?
Correct me if I'm wrong but unless the shielded box adsorbs the microwaves you'd also get reflections (just like in a microwave over.)


BTW: Gigabit cards can be got for less than €25 on komplett

Main point is that 802.11b at it's slowest speed (1Mbs) is still faster than any entry level BB in this part of the world.

STaN

Originally posted by Ripwave
Gotta wonder what all that 54MB hoopla is all about

Well thats the speed one way, i assume 54mb implies 27upstream 27downstream

Also these have overheads on the connection while it may be 54mb RAW data, its less with all the protocol overheads. (I may be open to correction on this).

Also regarding the 802.11b (11mb/sec) wireless gear, it operates at 6Mb/sec in reality.


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On a side note: Re: File Transfers.

The most i've seen transfered in my current wired lan at home was 50Mb/sec, so im taking a 50% hit in tranfer times but gain in that i've no wires running around the place.

Capt'n Midnight

Wireless is half duplex - can't talk and receive at the same time - so it's not 27Mb each way.

And yes there are protcol overheads too - but that's the same with modems (stop & start bits) and 10/100/1000 - and then there is the overhead of the OS as well.

6Mbs - there are people in this country who would sell babies to get internet connections at that speed

STaN

Im going to get my hands on the Netgear WGR614 and see what its like.

Kristok

Ive the usr one its the best one you can get and is only about 150 euro and has built in firewall etc, speed stays constant regardless of how far you move away from the router (well in my house anyway) ive seen some that will stop working if theres a wall between the router and card.

The reason you only get 27mb is because its just industry hype claiming 54mbs, 27 is about as good as youll get with 802.11g, same way as a v.90 is claimed to be 56k but you will be unlikly to connect at better than 48k, its just advertising and is technically true if you live somewhere without any enviornmental conditions, ie mars.