Coming Soon to a shop near you!
Yes it’s true. We’re finally getting a fully fledged dual-band router in Europe that’s affordable. Since Linksys still hasn’t released the WRT600N router in these parts I’m pretty damn anxious to get my hands on this baby. You’re probably wondering why I’m so excited about this. Well I’ll first explain what so special about this router.
It’s dual band, so that means it can simultaneously transmit in the 5 GHz band and the standard 2,4 GHz band. This is especially useful for High Definition Media Playback over a wireless connection (think: Media Center extender in the bedroom, Wireless Media Center PC in the living room and a WHS in the closet serving the content.)
All this High Definition playback takes place on the 5 GHz band so it won’t interfere with the normal webbrowsing, e-mailing and chatting going on in your household.
It’s certified for B/G/N (draft 2.0) standards so it’s compatible with all your current wireless devices. Best part? The older devices won’t interfere with the newer N devices because the router will switch all N devices to the 5 GHz band so that they can maintain their high transfer speeds.
Me personally? I would buy this router in an instant if it was fully compatible with the DD-WRT opensource firmware. The good people at DD-WRT are working on it but it might take some time. I especially like the idea of serving HD content all over the house wireless and considering you get a Gigabit switch and a Storage Link (so you can hook up an harddisk to the router and access the files from any pc in the network) I wouldn’t call $200 a bad price.
But my main reason for buying would be Wireless Backups to my WHS box since it’s difficult to wire my house and I’m sure there are other out there with the same problem. I wouldn’t be enjoying the full speeds of a wired gigabit network but it beats the hell out of my standard 54g network and I’m sure that everyone who’s ever attempted a full backup over wireless will agree with me.
July 9th, 2008 at 10:35 am
Hi,
I currently have a range of wirelss devices in my home. For a start I have a Linksys WAG325N with devices connected wirelessly on 802.11g (2.4GHz 54Mbps) and 802.11n (2.4GHz 300Mbps). I also have a D-Link access point which gives me 802.11a (5GHz 54Mbps) for my xbox.
What I would like to know is will my xbox connect to this at 5GHz 54Mbps?
Do all N adapters have the functionality to connect to a 5GHz frequency? For example I have a Netgear WN311B which currently connects 300Mbps at 2.4GHz, will it connect 300Mbps at 5GHz or do I need a new adapter for my computer?
Chris
July 9th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Hi Chris
I’ve taken a look at the datasheet (available at http://www.linksys.com). The router supports 802.11a so your 802.11a access point will connect at 54 Mbps.
As to your second queston, no for true dual band operation you will need dual band equipment. Such as the Linksys WUSB600N and WPC600N.
Existing N devices will off course connect to the 2.4 GHz band as normal.
August 20th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Just got one of these this morning, within 20mins it stopped working and I now just have a flashing powerlight.
Pretty looking thing though!