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A need for speed: 802.11n router roundup


Linksys Wireless-N Gigabit Router with Storage Link

Linksys Wireless-N Gigabit Router with Storage Link (WRT350N)
Manufacturer: Linksys (product page)
OS support: Windows 2000/XP/Vista
MSRP: $159.99 (shop for this item)

The Linksys Wireless-N Gigabit router looks like a spaceship, the kind of thing that has real potential to throw out a strong signal. It has a large platter antenna about the size of a small playing card and two typical WiFi router antennas.

I ran into a few problems during my first week with the Linksys router. Every so often I'd lose my Internet connection. I couldn't figure out what was going on. Was it my service provider? Eventually I was so fed up with the connection loss that I switched out the router to my old router and found that it was actually the new Linksys router that was causing the problems.

Reinstalls, hard boots—nothing seemed to snap it out of its coma. I told Linksys about my problem, and they had a technical support representative contact me to help me figure it out. Minutes before the phone call, I figured I'd give the router another try since I needed to have it booted in order for them to help me anyway. Of course, it was one of those things that fails until someone is watching you, and then it runs without a flaw. The failure was really annoying, because it wasn't a problem that was easily identifiable. Although the router works now, it's important to mention. Usually these errors can be fixed with a firmware update, but I was already running the latest firmware, so I'm still at a loss as to why it happened or why it recovered.

In throughput tests, the Linksys offered the best TCP throughput results overall. However, it also had much lower UDP throughput in locations one and two, where we saw the D-Link blazing ahead of the competition. In location three, the Linksys router showed me the potential of the 802.11n standard: distance. 35 feet away from the router, sitting outside in my front yard, I was able to pull TCP packets at 17Mbps where even the WRT54G router had fallen to 2.37Mbps. That's just over four times the speed that the wireless-g router offered.

The Linksys Gigabit router, like the D-Link, has a Quality of Service (QoS) feature which allows you to prioritize traffic on your network; if you want to slay some monsters in Lord of the Rings Online while chatting it up with your fellowship, you can give both LOTRO and your VoIP application priority so that they get the most attention on your network. If you're mean, you could set your sister's The Sims Online to lowest priority and hear her scream as she lags out and burns the popcorn—or whatever it is they do in The Sims these days. 

To turn on QoS, simply navigate to the Linksys router setup page, click QoS, and then set the programs that you want to prioritize. If your game or application isn't on the predefined list, you'll simply need to browse to the .exe file you want to prioritize and you're set to go. I tested the QoS feature while running Skype, mIRC, AIM, and trying to play Lord of the Rings Online. Usually this is a pretty laggy experience, but to be honest, I did not much difference between having the game prioritized and having QoS turned off.

Along with the AirPort Extreme, the Linksys is also the only router in the roundup with a "Storage Link," which allows you to add an external hard drive to your network simply by plugging the drive into the back of your router. I absolutely loved this feature.

The familiar Linksys web interface

Adding a hard drive to the Linksys was a cinch. I simply had to plug it in, set the router to share the drive over the network, then simply map the hard drive on the computers I wished to access it from. If you're looking for a cheap way to add a NAS device to your home network, this could be a good option.

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