Edimax 3G-6210N

Posted on July 30th, 2010 in Hardware | 2 Comments

This pocket-sized gizmo makes you wonder how you ever lived without one, especially when travelling. It is a regular traveller’s Wi-Fi router which not only supports 3G, but is also truly portable when powered by its removable 1,880mAh battery.

Edimax 3G-6210N
This means it is equally at home sitting on your desk or tucked in your pocket.

When travelling, you can carry this portable router around and your friends can surf the Web via the device. At home, you can plug it into a wall socket.

The only downside is that when compared with dedicated MiFi routers, the Edimax device requires an additional 3G USB modem, which you plug into the device’s USB port.

However, the Edimax is an almost full-featured Wi-Fi router here, with support for encryption standards such as WEP, WPA and WPA2, so your data is well-protected when it is sent over the air.

It also comes with advanced features like Quality of Service (QoS) and Denial of Service protection. The former lets you prioritise traffic for better performance. The latter protects you from Web attacks.

The most appealing aspect of this gizmo, however, is its ease of use. I plugged a Huawei E1550 3G modem into its USB port and within seconds, I was online with my laptop via the router’s Wi-Fi link. No software installation was needed.

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3G Mobile Broadband

Posted on July 28th, 2010 in Hardware | No Comments

The rise of 3G and the popularity of smartphones like the Apple iPhone have sparked new ways of connecting to the Net, such as with MiFi or personal Wi-Fi hot spots.

This trend is expected to become even more pervasive as telcos roll out cheaper and faster mobile broadband plans.

Since last year, telcos here have been selling MiFi devices which enable users to share a 3G connection over Wi-Fi.

With these gizmos, a user can create a portable Wi-Fi hot spot around himself and do so anywhere as long as there is 3G coverage.

Novatel-Wireless-MiFi-2372

He can hook up several devices, such as a laptop and a Sony PlayStation Portable, to the Net wherever he goes. Friends around him can also log on to this mobile Wi-Fi hot spot.

Such technologies are a boon to travellers and techies. Whether in a hotel room or an office which bans, say, instant messaging or Facebook, such personal Wi-Fi hot spots can easily be used to open up an unfettered connection to the Net.

Mobile broadband plus Wi-Fi

A recent development is the integration of 3G connectivity with Wi-Fi routers. Tapping on the rising speed of mobile broadband services, which is now touted to go up to 21Mbps, many network gear makers offer 3G-enabled routers which can act either as a portable Internet link or a second link to complement existing broadband connections at home.

Unlike early MiFi devices, which were usually portable and powered by batteries, these routers need to be plugged into a power socket and boast features similar to those of regular broadband routers found in homes.

To hook it up, users only have to plug in a regular USB dongle – the same ones that they are likely to receive from their telcos when they sign up for a mobile broadband plan. Once connected, they can easily hook up multiple devices and users to it.

There are even routers that use power from a wall socket as well as batteries. With such a router, you can surf the Net, say, in a hotel room, and continue surfing as you leave the room if you carry it along and let it run on battery power. Taiwan’s Edimax makes such a router.

More choices, however, means more to consider when choosing your next MiFi device or 3G Router, such as which 3G dongle is supported by the router you are eyeing. How long can you surf using a MiFi gizmo before its battery runs out?

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Belkin Wireless Routers with Apps

Posted on July 25th, 2010 in Hardware, Router | No Comments

THERE are lots of routers out there but I would think the new Belkin routers are the easiest to set up and get going. Out of the box, there are tags attached to the ethernet cable and power cable indicating where they should be plugged into.

Belkin Wireless Routers

The router is also pre-configured with WPA lock and a card which shows the router name and password. This spares the first-time user the bother and pain of setting up a new router.

Of course, the strength of the new Belkin routers is not that they cater merely to the needs of the techno-novice. They also provide apps to enhance the wireless experience.

The four routers available: Surf, Share, Play and Play Max, enable users to play music, games and videos, plus share photos and print wirelessly from anywhere in their homes. And there is a Memory Safe function that automatically backs up photos and files to an external hard disk.

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What to look for in a Wi-Fi router

Posted on July 21st, 2010 in Router, Wireless 101 | No Comments

WI-FI ALLIANCE CERTIFICATION
Any router with an “n” in its name is capable of delivering raw data rates of 300 to 450Mb/s, right?
Wrong!
The Wi-Fi Alliance awards 802.11n interoperability certification only to routers that support two or more spatial streams (each stream is capable of a raw data-transfer rate of 150Mb/s). Single-stream client adapters can be certified as 802.11n, but the Wi-Fi Alliance awards only 802.11a, 802.11b/g, or 802.11a/b/g certification to single-stream routers. Any product that previously qualified for 802.11n Draft 2.0 certification can be automatically certified to be in compliance with the final standard. When in doubt, check which logo appears on the box.

SWITCH SPEED
Nearly every wireless router has an integrated switch for making hardwired Ethernet connections. You need to move
upscale to get a gigabit switch, though; each of the devices in this roundup has WAN and LAN ports that are limited to 100Mb/s speeds. A narrow WAN port isn’t a big deal (even screaming-fast FiOS connections top out at 50Mb/s downstream) and you probably won’t miss a gigabit switch unless you’re running a NAS box or a server.

QUALITY OF SERVICE
Quality of service (QoS) refers to the router’s ability to assign different priorities to the various types of traffic moving over the network. Wi-Fi Multimedia (WMM) is a QoS baseline because the router must have it in order to be certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance. WMM is designed to prioritize network traffic passing through the router according to four criteria (provided the appropriate bits are embedded in the packets before they’re put on the network). Voice traffic receives the highest priority, followed closely by video traffic. Packets carrying a “best effort” flag come next, followed by packets identified as “background.”

Better routers include more robust QoS features. They might let you prioritize traffic by application (so that packets related to an online game are favoured over BitTorrent downloads or web browsing activity, for instance), or by IP or MAC address or Ethernet port (so that a specific device gets higher priority than anything else on the network).

STORAGE OPTION
An increasing number of routers support USB storage devices. Some models support true NAS (network-attached storage) functionality, so that computers on the network can access the drive just like any other storage device. Others provide access to the storage only through a built-in FTP server.

PRINTER OPTION
Some routers can function as a printer server, allowing you to share a single USB printer with every PC on your network. Support for multifunction printers is elusive, however; you can typically share the printer function over the network, but not the scanning or fax features.

PARENTAL CONTROLS
We’re not big fans of this feature (we believe it affords a false sense of security because kids will figure out how to circumvent it anyway), but parental controls do at least allow you to put temporary roadblocks in front of unsavoury websites, and they make activities such as peer-to-peer file sharing more difficult to pull off .

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Trendnet TEW-652BRP

Posted on July 15th, 2010 in Hardware, Wireless Router | No Comments

Trendnet TEW-652BRP

TRENDnet TEW-652BRP looked promising in the first benchmark test, with the client in the kitchen and closest to the router. Achieving TCP throughput of 68.4Mb/s put it in third place behind Belkin’s N Wireless and D-Link’s DIR-615. Performance went downhill from there, with the TEW-652BRP placing fifth, fourth, and last in our patio, bedroom, and media room locations, respectively. It couldn’t maintain a connection to the client at all in our most distant outdoor tests.

Feature-wise, the TEW-652BRP is about as basic as they come. You can establish routing rules for special applications, such as games, but QoS features are limited to the minimum required to achieve Wi-Fi Alliance certification.

This model boasted the lowest street price, of all the routers, but it’s no bargain. In fact, if you don’t need wireless routing, Asus’s pathetically slow RT-N13U is the better value, thanks to its support for printer sharing and USB storage. In reality, though, we’ve never met someone who bought a wireless router and didn’t use its wireless networking capabilities. The real bottom line is that you could spend just a few extra clams and step up to the D-Link DIR-615, which delivers exponentially better performance and a much stronger feature set.

Trendnet makes some very good routers; the TEW-652BRP isn’t one of them.

Checkout the specification on TRENDnet 300 Mbps Wireless N Home Router TEW-652BRP

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Cisco Linksys WRT120N

Posted on July 12th, 2010 in Hardware | No Comments

Linksys WRT120N

We hope Linksys’s marketing effort with the WRT120N won’t blossom into an industry trend, but we know it will. Linksys advertises this router with the tagline “Step up to the speed of Wireless-N!” Read the data sheet, however, and you’ll find this: “Complies with IEEE 802.3u, 802.11g, and 802.11b standards, and [is] compatible with some 802.11n features”. The 802.11n standard has achieved sufficient brand recognition that many consumers won’t look past the N in the product’s name, and they’ll fail to notice that the Wi-Fi Alliance certification logo on the Cisco-Linksys WRT120N box extends only to 802.11b/g.

Yep, this is a single-stream router, and the benchmark numbers reflect that design: The WRT120N achieved less than half the throughput of our zero-point router, Trendnet’s TEW-639GR, in the kitchen, bedroom, and patio tests. It did beat the snot out of Trendnet’s other router, the TEW-652BRP, but the Trendnet’s street price is nearly half that of the WRT120N Wireless-N Router.

As with most of the competition in this category, the WRT120N is devoid of advanced features such as USB ports for storage or printer sharing, but it does off er better-than-average QoS features, and you can tweak most of its firmware settings

Check the specification of the Cisco-Linksys WRT120N Wireless-N Home Router.

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What to Do with Your Old Router

Posted on July 9th, 2010 in Wireless 101 | No Comments

What to Do with Your Old Router
You can convert most wireless routers into a wireless access point by turning off the DHCP server in the firmware.

Don’t toss your existing router in the trash when you bring home a bright, shiny new model; convert it into a wireless access point, switch, or bridge.

Plug a PC into one of the old router’s LAN ports. Open a web browser, type in the router’s IP address, and log in. Your
network must have only one DHCP server, so disable the server on the old router. Now, assign the old router an IP address that’s outside the new router’s DHCP server range.

Unplug the computer, place the old router where you need it, and connect it to the new router with an Ethernet cable (use the LAN ports at both ends). If stringing Ethernet cable isn’t convenient, consider using power-line networking modules. You now should be able to connect to the new access point by typing the access point’s IP address into a web browser on any computer on your network. In addition to having a new wireless access point, you can also use the old router’s remaining LAN ports as a wired switch.

If you have a device that depends on a wired Ethernet connection, but dragging Cat5 cable to it isn’t practical and you don’t want to use power-line modules, convert your old router into a wireless bridge. This will most likely require third-party replacement firmware (DD-WRT, Sveasoft, and Tomato are the most popular options). Install and confi gure the firmware and position the router where needed. You’ll be able to make wired connections this way, but clients will not be able to make wireless connections to the bridge.

Have fun !

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