802.11g WLAN gear: D-Link, Belkin top our early wireless tests

摘要

The lack of a final standard hasn't prevented an early crop of 802.11g wireless LAN products (54M bit/sec, 2.4-GHz frequency) from coming to market. We obtained seven prestandard access points and put them through their paces. This gear is pointed largely toward home and small business markets, and the product features show it. This first group is far faster than pure 802.11b, yet slows quite a bit when 802.11b clients try to access them. They show promise, but our results will change when a final standard brings compliant firmware upgrades. We tested products from Apple, Belkin, Buffalo Technology D-Link Systems, Linksys, Netgeat and SMC Networks. Buffalo's products hit our doors first―and, like many of the participants, the company followed up with several CDs or fat firmware files worth of revisions in the three months after products were released.