brad's Experience - It Works!
Written: Jan 25 '03 (Updated Jan 26 '03)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Ease of Installation: |
 |
|
| Ease of Use: |
|
|
|
Pros: Linksys experience - refined version of the technology. Wireless is freedom!
Cons: Line of sight issues. Use access points or third-party antennas if you run into problems.
The Bottom Line: Our wireless lan is humming right-along. It's been fantastic for what we need. I recommend it to anyone looking to do home-networking or for small businesses looking for office-networking.
|
|
|
| brad's Full Review: Linksys (BEFW11S4) 802.11b Wireless Access Point |
This technology is amazing.
This particular product is a truly robust, latter version of multiple attempts – by dozens of vendors – to produce an EFFECTIVE Wi-Fi wireless lan router/access point.
I’m not sure what to call this. It’s been termed many times over, but I’ll call it a “wireless lan.” How’s that?
The wireless lan technology has been available for a few years now. The first real breakthrough was the 802.11b technology. I know this review goes out to a lot of people, and those of you who are tech savvy, please bear with me, as I would like the casual consumer to understand, as best is practical, what we’re talking about here.
802.11b is among several “standards” of wireless networking. Of the prominent standards, there is also 802.11g, 802.11a, and Bluetooth. Each standard, supposedly, has its merits, but the dominant standard is 802.11b, the technology which is the subject of this review (why this Linksys model exists).
Linksys, and many other vendors, for that matter, have been tinkering with wireless technology for years. They’ve put out many versions of products that use the same technology (up until this year, mainly the 802.11b standard). Well, after much fine-tuning, Linksys really struck gold with this router.
I was skeptical. Actually, this whole story is very ironic. I work for a WISP (Wireless Internet Service Provider). One of my good friends, a technician at work, convinced me to go with the wireless lan.
I already had a very functional, wired CAT-5 home network. Why go wi-fi? Well, I live on a farm site, with many buildings and many computers. My Grandmother lives on the farm, in a house about 250 feet away from ours. I wanted to give her a computer for Christmas, but the problem was Internet connectivity. I knew that dial-up was a waste of anyone’s time (sorry dial-up users), so I wanted to hook her into our home lan. I thought about laying CAT-5 all the way into her house, but my technician told me that probably wasn’t a wise approach. There are many factors involved, but we eventually agreed on wi-fi.
Although, at first, the project appeared expensive and overly intensive to install. We talked about big antennas so that my Grandma would receive the signal, we talked about access points, we talked about climbing roofs. Heck, the process ended up being a cinch.
I took the advice of my technician, as he insisted I go with Linksys, as opposed to other wi-fi brands such as Dlink or Netgear. In any case, I bought the equipment. I bought this router, one laptop PCMCIA card (WPC11 version 3), and two WUSB11 USB 1.1 wireless network adapters.
Well, once the stuff came, I tested it out. The testing went great from the moment I had the ISP connected to the router. I first tested the WUSB11, as I knew that was the item I would be using to connect my Grandma’s computer to our network. I connected it to a laptop (the PCMCIA card works much better, but for testing purposes, I wanted to make sure the USB adapter worked because that was the premise for buying Grandma’s computer!). I then walked around our house, testing the connection. It worked.
But there was a serious problem once I stepped outside. I found out quickly, that Wi-Fi very much depends on line-of-sight. See, I’ve always had our router in the basement. I live in a split-level house, so the router was sitting right at ground level on a ledge in our office.
I talked to my friend, the technician, and he told me to move the router upstairs, near a window that faced the buildings I wanted connected to the Internet. I followed his instructions. The rest is history.
After I moved the router in front of a window that faces my Grandmother’s home, and several of our farm buildings, receiving the signal wasn’t a problem. I was getting virtually the same speeds as my wired computers inside our house.
Oh, that’s another great benefit to this router. Aside from it acting as an access point, it also has four ports and an uplink port for a switch. Well, I simply ran a regular CAT-5 cable down into our office (where all the CAT-5s from all the other wired devices congregate), and plugged it into a switch. So, anything that was wired before the switch to the wireless lan, was plugged into the switch for hard-wired connectivity. This is a great product because you can use it for hard-wired connectivity as well as wireless connectivity.
The climax came on Christmas day. Since I had already tested the equipment, I was fairly certain the system would work, but I could hardly wait until I got my Grandma’s new computer set up in her house and connected to our home lan. I set up the computer, installed the WUSB11 network adapter, put the adapter in the nearest window, and BAM! My Grandma had a broadband connection in a 1960s home on a farm site, 250 feet from the nearest ISP pipe. The technology is amazing.
I also tested the system in other buildings on the farmsite, as far as, probably, 600 feet away – same speeds (about 1300 kbs Internet).
Aside from using the WUSB11 adapter, we’ve since placed a laptop computer in our kitchen that uses the WPC11 card (PCMCIA card). That works exceptionally well. I walked around our house with that laptop and the PCMCIA card really is amazing. It doesn’t make much sense, when you think about it. I can see how the WUSB11 (USB) adapter works – it has a little antenna on it that sticks into the air. The PCMCIA card barely sticks out of the laptop, yet it receives the signal just as well. Impressive.
Beyond the USB adapter and the PCMCIA card, there is also a “driver-less” adapter you can get from Linksys – the WET11. Actually, if money weren’t an issue, I would have bought two of those rather than two of the USB adapters. The WET11s connect to any Ethernet devices WITHOUT DRIVERS, which can be important if you’re using a video game console or a ReplayTV unit, or the like. The USB adapters are roughly half the price of the Ethernet adapters.
Well, are there other issues…?
There should be mention of competing vendors, and, more importantly, competing technologies.
Dlink has a lot of experience in this area, probably as much as Linksys. Their products are about the same price, maybe even a bit cheaper, but Linksys is better respected in tech circles. Netgear also sells a line of 802.11b gear. I don’t know much about their wireless gear, but I had a traditional Netgear hard-wired router and it was fantastic (small business class – about a $300 router). And, introducing, Microsoft. For some crazy reason, Microsoft has decided to start making and selling wireless networking hardware. I have no idea how their stuff works.
A better discussion is that of competing technologies. I’ll say upfront, I don’t have any experience with other wireless technologies (at least for home lans). However, I’ve read quite a bit about the emerging standards and the likelihood that any one of them will take off.
Right now, it appears as though the only threat to 802.11b’s market dominance is that of 802.11g. The key difference of the technologies is the potential for speed. 802.11b claims maximum transfer speeds of 11mbs. 802.11g claims up to 54mbs. Now, before we get excited, it should be well recognized that even the best Internet connections don’t climb much above T1 speeds (for 99.99% of all users). I’m proof of this fact. I average speeds of 1400 kbs from my ISP, and I did speed tests at my Grandmother’s house and she was getting 1300 kbs (could have simply been the particular time I ran the speed tests).
The advantage of 802.11g is file transferring within a local area network (lan). If you’re in a small office environment and you transfer a lot of stuff around, or even if you’re a larger company, perhaps the new standard is worth exploring.
However, you should do your research. It took these major vendors about three years before they really got 802.11b to be VERY FUNCTIONAL. If you go with Linksys, and I’ve been told by many parties, you won’t go wrong with their wireless gear. The other vendors have also been cranking out newer versions of their 802.11b routers and access points. The point is, that the technology has been around long enough so that it is has been refined and is known to work in varying environments.
In closing, the Linksys BEFW11S4 version 2 Access Point router with 4-port switch is a tremendous networking tool. The technology truly does work. HOWEVER, LINE OF SIGHT is the key. You’ll run into problems every time you try going thru walls or buildings. One or two, or three traditional home walls won’t be an issue, but buildings will be an issue. Wi-Fi won’t work trying to go through a large building or multiple visual impediments. You need to have a decent line of sight.
Hey, if you have the line of sight and the average American home or small office, this router will get the job done! If you have a larger office or wish to expand your network, you can always add access points or antennas to extend the range. But, you probably won’t even need an access point if you have a middle class home.
Good luck!
Oh, strictly for your convenience, if you want to know more about the individual adapters I used to connect various computers or broadband devices, you might consider checking out my reviews for those specific items. Although I haven't yet published the reviews of the various adapters, I plan on posting them soon (hang in there with me!). I know I’m not supposed to reference other reviews, but I couldn’t care less about the money – just trying to help out!
Yours, brad.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 102.00
Driver Availability: Windows only
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
brad
|
 - Top 500 |
|
Member: Brad Engelmann
Location: Helen Township, MN
Reviews written: 161
Trusted by: 94 members
About Me:
brad@engelmann.us (email address)
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.