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Interoperability Tests of Draft 802.11n Routers
mikemuch writes "ExtremeTech has done interoperability testing of five wireless routers from Belkin, Buffalo, D-Link, and Netgear — along with their matched NICs. Results (summarized in a color-coded table) are very mixed, with several of the products not talking to one another at all. From the review: 'Netgear's RangeMax NEXT devices dominated in the throughput race, but interoperability was a mixed bag...Stick to a single brand and a single product line...Don't expect all of your existing clients to work with the new hardware. If some don't, you may have to pony up for some new wireless equipment. No one ever said early adoption was cheap.'"
This is why you wait for it to be a standard.. and not a draft.... anyone buying 802.11n stuff should realize that they are paying to be beta testers
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
Your basic components of draft 802.11n hardware are the same. At the heart of the 802.11n is multiple-input/multiple-output (MIMO) communication--using multiple radios simultaneously transmitting and receiving different signals to and from at least two radios on the client side to and from two or more on the access point.
Instead of just adding more radio's, transmitters and receivers, when will we actually start seeing real innovation?
As far as I'm concerned, 802.11g works fine for me!
I'll say. Doing a quick-and-dirty measurement of the fitness of 802.11n for prime time by taking all the numbers in that table and averaging them, one comes up with the unappetizing figure of 30.9. I'll stick with my 802.11G, thanks....at least I know it'll work pretty much the same wherever I go.
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
A warning against buying technology that is not yet proven and standardised?
I don't even know why the notorius early adopter crowd would buy draft-n wireless equipment. When buying a laptop recently I had the choice to get a draft-n wireless card, however some quick googling showed me that draft-n devices universally underperform. The biggest thing though is that there is no garuntee whatsoever that these cards will work with n networks (they don't even play well with other draft-n devices) when they finalize the spec. I don't see any reason to buy into draft-n except that it contain 85% percent more buzzwords than leading competitors.
If this signature is witty enough, maybe somebody will like me.
That's the great thing about "standards" there are so many to pick from!!!
Funny thing, the data thruput bottleneck is generally not at the 802.11X point anymore.
802.11"X" - hm, that has a nice ring to it.... Sorta sounds like upgrading my 80286 to a 386, to a 486, to a...
Seriously the 802.11 interface will shake out.
Stay tuned for 802.16A WiMax!
www.effectiveelectrons.com "chips that work" Analog, RF, Mixed Signal
Yeah, especially when you buy stuff that isn't based on a ratified spec and then complain about interoperability. Smart folks!
What amazes me is that by far the majority of the public who think they have to have the fastest technology out there will be using it exclusively to access the Internet with their 1.5 meg DSL or 3 to 5 meg cable connection, a situation where they will see no improvemnent over existing, compatablle, and less costly 802-11g technology, in may cases that they already own. Sure, high speed wireless access is nice if you frequently move huge files across the wireless link between local machines, but in my experience talking to users who have bought into high speed, the average smuck that just has to have the newest fastest technology has no clue where his bottleneck is.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
until 802.11n routers can play nicely with other wireless networks and not interfere with 802.11b/g WLANS...and can offere some actual performance benifit I fail to see any reason to have anything to do with 802.11n (pre n)
actually I am happy to see you, however that is in fact a banana in my pocket.
Only Old Drafted-North Koreans need interoperability.
All your next-generation ATM drafts are belong to us.
In Soviet Russia, routers draft YOU!
Go ahead, use many connections. Highly-directional antennas should cut down on the interference enough to make it feasable.
Although in your case, mated draft-n items might be the way to go. Just realize you are buying a temporary solution and the equipment may be obsolete when N comes out. Then again, so will g equipment.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
You buy these products knowing that there is no standard - each vendor has there own implementation. So if I was going to buy a proprietary technology it would only make sense to buy the same product from the same vendor. The fact that most of them do work with each other, at least at some level, is a bonus.
All that I really would expect compatibility-wise would be complete interoptibility between b and g standards, so if I chose, I could still use either my g adaptors with the Pre-N router, or vice versa.
Sure, your access point only works with one brand of hardware, that just makes it harder for people to steal your precious bandwidth!
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Next summer, the first standards-compliant firmware will arrive. A year later, that firmware will have been debugged and protected.
By then, WPA-PSK will have been handily cracked.
So buy now, if you need the speed, and hang on to your 802.11a/b/g card just in case you have to leave your 802.11n captive-vendor AP behind for a while.
And remember: gross payload might be 108mb, but actual max next-hop throughput is on the order of about 3.2megabytes/sec., using bsd ftp's number as a guide with puts and gets, on a clean GBE switch with no other users or interference or other obstructions.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
these go to 11n!
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
Next summer, the first standards-compliant firmware will arrive. A year later, that firmware will have been debugged and protected.
you just have to hope to hell that 1: your device can actually handle the final spec and 2: they actually bother to do so.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Most of these chipsets claim to be based on 802.11n draft 1.0, so in theory they should interoperate.
What kind of machine is it? Does it have enough flash/RAM? What about (undocumented) serial ports?
You gotta realize that there will be updates in the Pre-N spec, as it is adopted. I would expect that the range of manunfacturers would produce a firmware upgrade on some of these units. But will the hardware work for the full spec? Is it robust enough a device?
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
It just takes time and known bugs. Look at the pre-release of 802.11g stuff, and how awful it was. It took about a yr AFTER the approved draft for things to settle down. Now you can use a b/g chipset from about anybody about anywhere.
MIMO is silly, and an interim patch until someone figures out decent and legal channel bonding, etc.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
... to support the final standard? Don't buy a product that isn't guaranteed to be upgradable to the final standard spec for free.
Everyone seems to be criticizing people for buying draft wireless equipment. I bought the D-Link RangeBooster N for my home laptop (which never leaves the table) because I was tired of my neighbors G routers constantly dropping my connection.
I've never been happier. The speed is extremely fast, the signal is strong, and best of all my connection never drops. When I get home my SSH sessions are still logged in... that's a first. It's also a great router too with decent QoS.
I'm totally happy to be a beta tester if it means I'm flying solo in the frequency spectrum for a year or so.
That is funny, but man that's agood idea as well. Although, you might be better off just setting up a 80211.A network. It would be cheaper and newbs would be less likely to have the cards.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
WPA-PSK has been cracked for some time now ... maybe you meant WPA2?
Even that has some well analyzed flaws, though I'm not aware of any freeware tools for hacking it.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
I haven't found any FOSS or other tools for WPA-PSK cracking. I must be looking in the wrong places.
Proxy authentication with temporal keys might be good this week. I wonder what's good next week.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
I was just reading something interesting as well. Intel plans on releasing the next platform chip Santa Rosa before the final standard. Santa Rosa will supposedly have the new 802.11n centrino technology. Check out the news story here http://news.com.com/2061-10791_3-6110311.html
sig here
If memory serves, networking gear manufacturers did the same thing with 802.11g by releasing "802.11g ready" routers and wireless network cards before the standard was even finalized. I remember this because I bought a "g ready" Linksys wirelss card that worked with my 802.11b router, but never worked with the D-Link "true" 802.11g router I upgraded to, so I tossed the card and had to buy another.
Isn't this a lesson we should have learned by now?
Next summer, the first standards-compliant firmware will arrive. A year later, that firmware will have been debugged and protected.
Nope, hate to break it to you but very little in existing 802.11n devices is software defined. Existing devices will mostly liklely not be firmware upgradable to the final standard, so you will be stuck with a device that is incompatable, underperforming, and will completely fuck up surrounding 802.11g/b networks. No thanks.
By then, WPA-PSK will have been handily cracked.
Already is, you want WPA2-PSK. Actually you don't, you want WPA2 enterprise. It is not that hard to set up.
Finkployd
Isn't this a lesson we should have learned by now?
They learned the lesson all right, but it wasn't the lesson you wanted. Chip and system vendors learned that products based on draft standards make money, especially if you release yours first. So for every future version of 802.11 there will be a race to the bottom to ship draft hardware as early as possible.
we tried this method and had little success, too many fumbled handoffs. Have you had much success ? A meshed worksite has been a HOLY GRAIL with my employer for quite some time. We've used a portable virtual-desktop shared terminal system for years waiting for a reliable and SECUREABLE wireless solution so the programmers could all flit about as is their nature.... :)
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
How many of these problems can be fixed by firmware patches once the N standard is finally finalized?
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Looks like we'll just have to wait for apple to come out with a solution so people start using it.
Interoperability is highly desirable, but it isn't the be-all-end-all.
If, for whatever reason, I need more wireless bandwidth than 802.11a/g offers RIGHT NOW, I'm going to buy a draft MIMO device, period.
Sometimes, you can't wait 2+ years, for the standard to be finalized.
Most users shouldn't buy-in, but there are lots of reasons someone might need to.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I should have said depricated, not obsoleted like the old-band FM Radio. Mea culpa.
However, pre-N and g will soon join the ranks of a and b as protocols almost nobody wants.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Why is it taking them so long to ratify this standard? Packets seem to go in one end and come out the other (Grin).
They have the G and B specs and those are quite good, I understand there are currently problems involving airwave sharing but if that is the only consideration why did we get the other three standards?
Also what happened to 802.11i?
Maybe I'm being paranoid but is it possible the standard is being delayed for something like Vista or Intels new chipset? Something to package into new machines to ensure people buy them?
Damn you microsoft I now have paranoia that you are negotiating the built in media service with someone like Amazon and are meanwhile negotiating the wireless standard with the isps in order to get users to pay for such and such a wireless service (First three months are free!) and your media box now buys music only from Amazon (Who needs the liscence from Plays for Sure in order to keep operating)... I don't want to have to double guess what sneaky crap microsoft execs have planned for the next windows generation.
I guess I feel nice that there's linux out there and that governments like the EU mean that it won't be a MS isp and an MS media store and an MS certified hardware vendor providing the only Vista enabled hardware.
Here's some light reading for you.
Basically, you can offline-brute-force TKIP fairly quickly, on the order of a few hundred guesses per second. Not nearly enough for a good key but plenty fast to crack a dictionary word.
If you "pre-hash" a dictionary, you can test a given connection in less than a minute. If the passphrase is in your prehashed dictionary, you 0wn it. If not, then you know it's not a totally lame passphrase.
Here's what Wikipedia has to say about WPA TKIP passphrases:
"Security is strengthened by employing a PBKDF2 key derivation function. However, the weak passphrases users typically employ are vulnerable to password cracking attack. Password cracking can be defeated by using a passphrase of at least 5 Diceware words or 14 completely random letters with WPA and WPA2. For maximum strength, 8 Diceware words or 22 random characters should be employed."
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Get range over 2km and you won't need any more standards, people will start sharing more and try and find some way to protect their data (piped data through a trusted intermediary? Hello big big big money!)
Anyway...
Where did 802.11a go? Why does it seem nobody is selling it any more?
I have had many connectivity problems since this was installed. My response has been to turn the power on my WRT54GS all the way up (third-party firmware), and lock-in to 802.11b mode. 802.11b is plenty fast enough for the only reason I use it, internet, and maybe the higher power level blasts my neighbor off from time to time.
Parent should be modded funny, not insightful, otherwise one could get the idea the moderators have no clue and support this silly argument.
Of course it runs NetBSD. BTC: 1NT7QvbetmANwaMzhpVL6
You guessed wrong - completely. If your motivation was to help people stay informed, you'll need to rethink your methods.
Except for the Airgo, none of these are the Pre-N gear you heard about. They're all Draft-N. The Belkin product was the latest released of the group (you're thinking of Belkin's Pre-N product probably, not this one) The Airgo wanted to be 11n, but they lost the standards war, and now they make no reference to 11n at all.
I'd say it's likely that all of these will conform to the eventual 11n spec, except the Rangemax 240, which already doesn't. The industry is building product to the defacto standard, 802.11n draft 1.0, and the majority will have a vested interest in avoiding incompatibilities with the final standard.
Expect to have to wait a while until it all interoperates, and expect to do a few firmware upgrades. Of course, they all beg you to upgrade them when you turn them on, so that part shouldn't be hard.
Controlling complexity is the essence of computer programming. -Brian Kernigan
11n raw data rate is 140 to 300Mbps for this generation. The 103Mbps measured in the test was actual TCP throughput.
Controlling complexity is the essence of computer programming. -Brian Kernigan
Pre-N is mainly a marketing game. How many of those in the general public is knowledgeable enough to know what "Pre-N" really means? And who cares when it "is" faster and still compatible with 11b/g?
The only goal of the big boys is to win the largest chunk of the market share - better win today, or else there is no tomorrow.
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