So, I just swapped out our network gateway/router/wireless access point, yet again. This is the third time in the past year. Our last two routers have been Linksys 802.11b gateway/routers. But Linksys quality control has really tanked since they were bought out by Cisco. In the past, the Linksys products were rock solid. But now, my God, they're just terrible.
The wireless performance of our most recent router would gradually degrade over a period of a week - by the end of seven days, web pages loaded at a molasses-slow rate and the access point wouldn't hold a VPN connection for more than about 45 minutes. Also, our TiVo is networked to the Internet via a wireless access bridge to the gateway. As the performance degraded, TiVo could no longer contact the TiVo Mothership.
And we're not the only ones with Linksys issues. Everyone I know who has purchased a Linksys router within the past 12 months has had terrible luck.
So based on the accumulated crappy Linksys performance, we decided to make a change. However, 802.11b routers are no longer commonly available. 802.11g is the new (actually not so new) thing. 802.11g is way fast. However, the signal degrades over a shorter distance. And the Partnow Manse is quite large with lots of corners and levels. As a result, radio signals, even from the best access points, can really attenuate in our house.
I decided that what we should do is get an 802.11g router with a repeater - a little radio placed within range of the main access point that can boost the access point's signal. After reading various reviews, we decided to go with the Buffalo WRB-G54K wireless router repeater kit. The kit comes with both the router and the repeater.
It wasn't too difficult to install the main router. However, the instructions and setup steps are definitely geared towards the geek crowd. I'm not sure someone without a lot of experience could make their way through the install. But since I've had way too much router access point installation practice, I breezed my way through it. I had to reboot all of our computers, the print server, and TiVo. But once everyone was rebooted, network access was blazingly fast. Even though, we're still at 802.11b - I don't have any 802.11g client equipment. But, wowzah! The speed was still fabulous.
And the range is amazing - even without the repeater. You see, the particular box that I pulled from the shelf had been a return - and it was not obvious. When I opened the box, I noticed that it had probably been opened before. However, it looked as if everything was there. But when I went to install the repeater, I discovered the repeater's power cord was missing. sigh...
But, this access point is so flat out fabulous, that the repeater is not needed. I am definitely impressed!!!!!
6:39:48 PM 
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