February 20th, 2008

If our last Wi-Fi router roundup taught us anything, it’s that wireless-n running in the 802.11b/g-compatible 2.4-GHz spectrum works about as well as a skateboard on water. Although theoretically capable of up to 300-megabit-per-second throughput, wireless-n really manages only about 120 Mbps in optimal conditions. But drop your “n” speed demon into the overpopulated 2.4-GHz band, seething with b/g wireless networks, cordless phones, microwave ovens, and sundry other bandwidth busters, and performance drops by 50 percent or more. The answer is to run in the more pristine 5-GHz band—but many home users simply don’t want to deal with the configuration hassle. Fortunately, Netgear’s HD/Video 5 GHz Wireless-N Networking Kit makes that as easy as throwing a switch, no matter what kind of home network you’re running now.

The idea for the networking kit is really fairly simple: Design two access points (APs) that can also act as a Wi-Fi bridge, make the built-in radios strictly 5 GHz, and give them Wireless Protected Setup (WPS) buttons and a Web-based management utility. Simply plug one AP into a switch port on your home router (or another switch connected to the router), run a setup utility, plug the other AP into power, press the WPS button, and wait a few seconds.

More info at pcmag.com