Wireless router quality explanation found!

[IceWindus]

I ran across a VERY enlighting article in a October edition of MobilePC magazine and I thought it would shed some light in all the discussion/ arguments we had with wireless router quality standards from a variety of different companys. One one guy will SWEAR by Linksys, and another will curse them till death and swears by Netgear.

I've retyped the article to get the clear picture.

Christopher Null, Editor in Chief
MobilePc Mag
Oct 2004
Editors Notebook

My recent column in the July issue of "Why your Turbo wireless Router blows chunks and mine rules" seemed to draw a line in the digital sand. We were flooded with letters, with polorized opinions from nearly equal numbers of readers.

One side indentified with the column, bemoaning the fact that they too had tried a succession of turbo routers, each crashing on a regular basis.

The other side said I was clinically insane and that they had never seen a router crash in their entire lives

Whos right? Well, everybody in this case. Router quality is widly variable, not just from one vender to the next, but from one model to another too. One unit will work great. An indentical unit won't work at all. Weve taken a rock solid router and added an innocuos firmware update, only to watch it go down in flames. Literally! One router vomitted sparks and steam of smoke during a new infamous test in the MobilePC labs test

Why are WiFi routers such a hit and miss affair? Its a relativly open secret that the guts of a nearly all 802.11g routers are produced by a mere two companies, Broadcom and Atheros Comm. Another company, Intersil, makes chips that can be found in just one product weve seen to date. Only two years ago, 40 different companies were competing for a slice of the wireless chip market. Today, that number has dwindled to fewer then 10. Other wif-fi chip companies, like Philips and Texas instruments, stay out of the router world alltogether, working instead on cell phone and PDA wireless chips.

Broadcom and Atheros are the Intel and AMD of the router chip world. Broadcom dominates the market, while Atheros plays saboteur. What has developed is a true duopoly, one in which the combatants are engaged in a bitter war.

With Broadcom and Atheros firmly installed at the top of a 600 million Wi-Fi chip market and with no new compeitition on the horizon, their free to tinker with their products, each time trying to eke a little more performance or a little more range outa the chip. Sounds good right? The problem is one of standards and consistency: Crack open a dozen different wireless rotuers, and chances are you'll find a dozen different Wi-Fi chips. Innovation good!, Standards, better!

Alas, todays "turbo" routers are miles away from any wireless standard on the books. Turbo and Super G routers are essentially experimental technologies, and your the guinea pig. And sure enough, allegations of these proprietary speed bosting technologies wreak havoc on neighboring networks as well as themselves.

Finally, the Wi-Fi Alliance has come forward to try to stop the madness, announcing that the 802.11x equipment that interfaces with other Wi-Fi products may get its certifications revokes. This isn't likely to matter much, Uncertified 802.11g products showed up on the market months before the 802.11g standard ever got finished, and consumers don't seem to care if a "certified" sticker is on the box

So what will happen with 802.11n, the 100mpbs version of W-Fi nears the complection circa of Oct 2005? If Tthere are fewer then six competing routers- all with beta firmware and buggy features on sale before the standard is finalized, i'll eat this column.

Meanwhile, we recommend keeping turbo modes turned off on your routers. It makes you a better neighbor and fi your browsing email and Web, you simply don't need the speed.

So there you have it.