W
ireless-router manufacturers are enticing you with Draft-N and
third-generation MIMO routers that pledge range significantly
superior to that of 802.11g wireless gear.
But there’s a voice whispering in your ear: “Don’t fall for their hol-
low promises. 802.11g is a bona fide standard; 802.11n is vapor.”
What’s a LAN builder in need of increased range
to do? Forsake interoperability now and forever?
Gamble that “Draft-N” gear really will be compat-
ible with the final IEEE standard? Settle for802.11g gear and live with the dead spots?
Allow us to suggest another path: Extend the range of your exist-
ing wireless network today and maintain interoperability now and in
the future by adding to your gear, instead of replacing it with hardware
that has an uncertain future. We brought two alternatives into our real-
world test lab—a 1,900-square-foot suburban home—to see which
would deliver the best user experience.
We pitted an amplified antenna from RadioLabs against a power-
line range extender from NetGear to see which product enabled us to
wander the furthest from a Linksys WRT54G 802.11g Wi-Fi router.Amplified Antenna vs.
Powerline Range Extender
EASE OF INSTALLATION
Setting up Netgear’s Powerline Range Extender Kit is akin to building
an entire second network. You plug a powerline Ethernet bridge into an outlet near
your router, hard-wire the bridge to your wireless router, and plug the wireless access
point into an outlet near where you need the added range. You then configure the wire-
less adapter card in your remote PC to talk to the new access point.
Installing RadioLabs’ amplified antenna is a simple matter of removing an antenna
from your wireless router, replacing it with the RadioLabs model, and plugging its
power supply into your outlet strip. There’s no need to configure your remote PC, since
it will be talking to the same router it talked to before.
WINNER: AMPLIFIED ANTENNAAMPLIFIED ANTENNA
RadioLabs 2.4GHz Wireless
Range Extender Amplifier,
$120, http://www.radiolabs.comFUTURE COMPATIBILITY
Although Netgear’s Powerline Range
Extender Kit uses Ethernet-over-powerline technol-
ogy to communicate between its wireless access
point and hard-wired bridge, the AP is fully 802.11b-
and 802.11g-compliant. Since any eventual 802.11n
standard must be backward-compatible with these
protocols, it stands to reason that Netgear’s product
will operate with this next-gen technology, too.
It’s a foregone conclusion that the eventual
802.11n standard will rely on MIMO symmetrical
antenna technology, which means it’s unlikely you’ll
be able to connect RadioLabs’ amplified antenna to
an 802.11n router next year.
WINNER: POWERLINE RANGE EXTENDERhead 2 headTWO TECHNOLOGIES ENTER, ONE TECHNOLOGY LEAVES
round 1 round 2
BY MICHAEL BROWN16 MA XIMUMPC SEPTEMBER 2006