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.'"

Comments

Dial N for $$$

[Kesch]

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.

Santa Rosa (Intel)

[Chowser]

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

Re:pre n no thank you.

[MojoStan]

until 802.11n routers can play nicely with other wireless networks and not interfere with 802.11b/g WLANS...

The conclusion to Anandtech's review on "draft 802.11n" routers showed just how bad these products can interfere with existing 802.11b/g networks. It's pretty freakin' bad (bold emphasis mine):

In our preliminary mixed mode testing we experienced the "bad neighbor" effect several times. Not only with our own internal 802.11g network but also visits from actual neighbors who were upset with having to constantly reboot their systems during our testing phase. As we stated earlier, the current 802.11n Draft 1.0 products utilize channel bonding to combine two 20MHz channels into a one wide 40MHz channel. Without proper fall-back techniques, this type of channel bonding can basically take over the entire 2.4GHz band that these products utilize. While the current 802.11n draft states that routers should not interfere with other networks in the area there are not any specifics as to how this will occur. At this time it is left up to the individual manufacturers to determine a "good neighbor" policy.

So even if you can get good 802.11n performance now, you'd probably be an arsehole to your neighbors (literally crashing their wireless networks). I hope the sellers of "draft n" products include an appropriate warning on their products for those who aren't arseholes.