Archive for category Wireless Networking
The trouble with 802.11 Wireless-N
Posted by Ivan Bohannon in Wireless Networking on April 15th, 2010
(Ed: This was originally written in 2009 when I was reviewing the WNR 3500)
As I finish up the third day of frustrating testing with the Netgear WNR 3500 Wireless-N Gigabit router, I’ve come to a simple realization: There just aren’t enough channels at 2.4 Ghz to make 300 Mbps wireless N work. Read the rest of this entry »
D-Link DIR628 RangeBooster N Dual Band Router
Posted by Ivan Bohannon in Wireless Networking on March 18th, 2009
Frys had this wireless-n router on sale for $69 the other day. Great price. I bought two in hopes of being able to use one of them as a repeater to create a larger wireless network. For the record, this product doesn’t support that. Oh I tried to use the D-Link Quick Router Setup CD, it repeatedly crashes in nmrsbase.exe. I googled this filename and its the Network Magic setup app, D-Link must rebrand this application. The manual browser setup works fine. I really despise installation CDs.
NETGEAR WNR 3500 RangeMax Wireless-N Gigabit Router
Posted by Ivan Bohannon in Wireless Networking on January 7th, 2009
Netgear WNR 3500
This router is the main ingredient of the fastest wireless performance I have ever seen. A few weeks ago I wrote about getting 70 Mbps with the Trendnet TEW-624UB and this router. Read the rest of this entry »
Trendnet TEW-624UB 300 Mbps Wireless N USB Adapter H/W:B1.1R
Posted by Ivan Bohannon in Wireless Networking on December 21st, 2008
Trendnet TEW-632BRP
Today I noticed that Fry’s is selling the Trendnet TEW-624UB adapter for only $19 (Price is good until December 23rd) . Last month I paid $59. This cheaper model has the same exact UPC as the $59 version, but the hardware revision listed on the back is B1.1 instead of A1.0. The new packaging doesn’t list its 802.11N as draft anymore. So this $19 adapter is the newest model version. Read the rest of this entry »
New wireless speed record: 71 Mbps with Netgear WNR3500 RangeMax Wireless N Router
Posted by Ivan Bohannon in Wireless Networking on December 14th, 2008
I am very excited to be writing this! Finally I’ve seen some decent wireless-n speed with off-the-shelf products. Last week I wrote about finally seeing 38 Mbps with an all Netgear combination: the WNR 3500 Gigabit router and the WNDA 3100 Dual-Band USB adapter. I was so happy to see 38 Mbps then that I didnt really beat on that setup very hard. Well I did more testing with that setup this weekend, and now, I can’t recommend the WNDA 3100 anymore. Things change fast! Read the rest of this entry »
How I test wireless products
Posted by Ivan Bohannon in Wireless Networking on December 13th, 2008
Netgear WNDR 3300
I’m explaining my wireless testing in detail with this post so I can abbreviate more and hopefully make it quicker to write up product reviews later on. After installing the wireless router and adapter, the main way I test is to do lots of file copies between my test machine and a file server directly attached to the wireless router. I copy the same amount of data each test pass, so I just have to measure how long it takes, and do some basic math to arrive at the effective throughput in millions of bits per second (Mbps). Read the rest of this entry »
The experts help me figure out my WLAN problems
Posted by Ivan Bohannon in Wireless Networking on December 2nd, 2008
I asked my linkedin extended network to help me figure out why I was getting such lousy WLAN performance. This was my question:
Why is WLAN still so slow? How come wireless-N products don’t test significantly faster than plain old 802.11G?
I’ve been doing lots of performance testing of WLAN products and writing up the results on my blog (www.bohannontech.com). I was excited at first because I bought some nice new 802.11N 270Mbps products from all of the major brands, Linksys, Netgear, D-Link, and Trend. These products often show a connection speed of 270Mbps, but the actual speeds of file copies is terrible – some as slow as 6 Mbps, and this is with 2 computers in the same room. When I run the same tests with wired Ethernet, I will consistently get 80Mbps.
Has anyone been able to get a real performing wireless-N setup and if so, can you recommend any products? Read the rest of this entry »
I finally saw 38 Mbps of throughput over wireless
Posted by Ivan Bohannon in Wireless Networking on November 30th, 2008
After nearly two weeks of performance testing, and using about a 12 different products, I seemed to have stumbled on the fastest wireless-n configuration to date:
A NETGEAR WNR3500 in 300Mbps mode at Channel 6,10 and a NETGEAR WNDA 3100.
The windows connection speed on my test PC showed 300 Mbps, and I had to have my test machine in the same room as the WNR3500.
The first test run was fairly fast, about 27 Mbps. The second test run was slower, about 25 Mbps, but during both of those tests I saw throughput spike to the high 30s, so I knew it could go faster if I got a “clean” run.
3rd time was a charm, I got clean test run that measured at 38 Mbps. Hey after a disappointing two weeks of product testing, that’s the fastest non-Ethernet connection I’ve seen. Read the rest of this entry »
270Mbps = 29Mbps!
Posted by Ivan Bohannon in Wireless Networking on November 19th, 2008
Well I’m disappointed. I wanted to find out how much speed I could get out of the NETGEAR RangeMax Dual Band Wireless-N Router (WNDR3300) , so I moved a PC right next to the access point and plugged a USB Dual Band Wireless-N Adapter (WNDA3100) into it. Read the rest of this entry »
