Since I've been working at Pure Networks I'd had the opportunity to play with lots of routers so I figured it would make sense to write up some comments about specific models I've been playing with. I'll admit that I've got some second thoughts about writing about my experiences with the routers since the manufacturers are often our partners and let's just say that I'm often going to have some rough comments.

I've been running the Belkin Wireless Pre-N Router at home for the past couple of weeks. My comparison is the D-Link DI-724 router which had been reliably serving my network for the past couple of years. I bought it because I was hoping to avoid interference by using the 5.4ghz band. Unfortunately that didn't work out too well since 5.4ghz doesn't go through walls as well as 2.4ghz and the signal strength downstairs was too low. Overall my main complaint with the DI-724 is just the strength of the single- even using 802.11g I don't get reliable connections downstairs at the main places where I care about it.

Several people at work recommended trying out one of the newer routers- 802.11N is this new way to use the 2.4ghz spectrum by transmitting on multiple channels at the same time to get better signal strength and performance. The 802.11N standard isn't finished yet but there are already many pre-standard product on the marketplace. While you need Pre-N/MIMO receivers to really take advantage of it, the basic radios in the newer equipment have improved enough over the years that I was told to expect better range with a newer product.

I took home the Belkin and hooked it up and did the basic configuration. Overall their web-interface is nice although its a bit strange that it defaults to a subnet of 192.168.2. instead of the more common 1. Also their authentication thing is based on some weird session concept so that if I've logged into the admin pages from one machine I can't log on from another machine until the first one's session times out. That can be a real pain.

Overall the improvements in signal strength are real- my downstairs machines went from 2/5 bar connections to 4 and often 5/5 bar connections and I can now reliably stream music (but not quite video) from my server without the constant glitching from the older router.

BUT, now that I've got a couple of weeks experience with it, I'd have to say its reliability is very disappointing. I tend to run a lot of traffic and do some port forwarding so maybe I'm pushing it harder than normal, but certainly not beyond spec. Part of the cool thing about Network Magic is that it makes the state of your network very visible- if I wasn't running Network Magic I'd probably have thought that the Internet was just being flaky or something, but it was very clear that the router itself was cutting in and out. The stranger thing was that after being on for a longer period of time it somehow gets into a state where normal traffic is working fine, but HTTP used to access the web was just not going through the router. I could ping and do other kinds of internet connections but any web site I tried to go to (with the exception of ones inside my network that I was able to use to confirm the issue) would fail. Rebooting the router would solve the problem (temporarily) so it seems pretty clear the issue was the router.

I should add that I've installed the latest firmware available on the Belkin site and that I've got machines that are outside the router that I can use to isolate issues.