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 A Closer Look Faster, More-Secure WiFi
Special to The Washington Post Sunday, December 14, 2003; Page F07
WiFi wireless networks are an unqualified success both in performance and in acceptance by a skeptical public -- they let you share an Internet connection among all the PCs in your home for less than $100 a PC. Having found the rare standard that actually works, the computing industry is now replacing it. The successor, "802.11g," advertises speeds five times faster than regular "802.11b" WiFi. For home users who only want to browse the Web and check their e-mail, 802.11b WiFi is already too fast, in that it transfers data far faster than they can be downloaded on any cable or DSL broadband Internet connection. (This hasn't stopped some manufacturers from making "faster than g" hardware on the faster-is-always-better principle.) But 802.11g does beat 802.11b in terms of security. The older WiFi used a scheme called WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy) to defy eavesdropping attempts -- but in practice, even semi-skilled hackers can defeat it. A newer system called WPA (WiFi Protected Access) fixes this, but although it can be added to 802.11b hardware, in practice WPA is much easier to find on the newer, "g" WiFi gear. The greater speed of 802.11g may tempt people who want to send video from one computer to another, but its added security -- and increasingly cheap pricing -- may tempt everyone else. To see how well this new networking hardware works, we tested three 802.11g access points: D-Link's DI-774 ($150), Linksys's WRT54G ($100) and Netgear's WGR624 ($150). Each can be the hub of a wireless network involving both "b" and "g" hardware (the D-Link adds support for a third, little-used standard called 802.11a). Each also works with any computer running Win 98 SE or newer; the D-Link and Netgear hardware support the Mac OS and Linux as well. In terms of raw speed, the Netgear and D-Link access points won out, pushing data between two computers at a smoking 2 megabytes per second, or 16 megabits per second (you'll usually see the latter, "Mbps" figure used; the former, however, measures data transfer in a unit most people actually know). The Linksys lagged behind at about 1.33 megabytes per second (10.64 Mbps), although even that is a lot of speed for just sending a file. The advertised speeds of all these devices are much faster: Netgear and D-Link employ a proprietary variation of the 802.11g standard with a theoretical peak of 108 Mbps, while the Linksys unit, which sticks to the standard, cites a 54-Mbps speed limit. This difference reflects the overhead of the WiFi protocol itself. As for range, all three access points worked fine across three floors of an old row house in the District, but their signal strength dropped to about a third in the back yard with a brick wall in the way. The key differences among them arise not in performance but in price, setup experience and tech support -- all frequent weak spots in the networking business. Of these three, only the D-Link worked as advertised right out of the box. The Linksys had outdated drivers and needed an update from Microsoft's Web site before its WPA got to work shielding our network. The Netgear also required firmware updates. Netgear deserves further demerits for continuing its habit of shipping hardware with driver software that hasn't passed Microsoft's compatibility testing -- which will invoke a sharply worded Windows XP warning when you install it. If you want the most options for configuring your WiFi network, the Linksys is the way to go -- you can even set what times of the day the network should be active. But many people will find this options-heavy interface to be daunting. All three companies offered knowledgeable, helpful tech support, even for our annoyingly novice test questions. We waited the longest on hold at Netgear (up to 30 minutes) but spent the least time listening to hold music at D-Link, with Linksys's performance varying in between.
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