title: Speaking of home wifi link: https://onemoretech.wordpress.com/2011/01/15/speaking-of-home-wifi/ author: lembobro description: post_id: 78 created: 2011/01/15 11:12:05 created_gmt: 2011/01/15 11:12:05 comment_status: open post_name: speaking-of-home-wifi status: publish post_type: post

Speaking of home wifi

I recently bought two new wireless N routers to replace the venerable Linksys WRT-54GL and Buffalo WHR-HP-54G combination that we’ve had running on the top and bottom floors of the house for years, the Linksys acting as the main router for the house and the Buffalo as a downstairs repeater. After spending a couple of months researching the available products, I settled on a pair of Rosewill EasyN4 devices from NewEgg, purchased within a week of each other so I could test one out before committing to a total upgrade.

NewEgg ’s annoying policy of charging a separate flat rate for shipping on each device was actually a benefit in this case, because it provided no incentive for purchasing both at the same time.

I installed the first EasyN4 downstairs to replace the Buffalo. With only a glance at the documentation (which was surprisingly well written), I quickly had it up and running as a Repeater. As a repeater it shared the SSID of the Linksys router upstairs, as well as its WEP security scheme and keys. A couple of things I really liked about the EasyN4 were its tiny size and low power consumption. That small size had one drawback: with even a single network cable plugged into it the small box kept sliding off the precarious perch I had for it on top of one of our Bose speakers in the living room.

After a few days of kicking the tires on this setup, I ordered a second EasyN4, which I swapped in for the Linksys upstairs when it arrived — configure as an AP Router. With two relatively “modern” devices I was finally able to move everything off WEP and on to WAP2 and drop reliance on MAC filtering. Seeing that throughput was suffering with the routers set to B-G-N, I reconfigured to use N only with automatic channel selection. This resulted in the doubling or more of the bandwidth available to a wireless device coming in on the downstairs repeater. Of course given that most of the wireless devices in the house don’t do N, I ultimately had to switch back to mixed mode. The problem, as usual, is my physical environment. A 20-year old three story house in a neighborhood where everyone is running at least one wireless access point is a recipe for wifi reception hell if there ever was one.

The lightweight (and low power) Seagate FreeAgent Theater+ (FAT) media player boxes we use as streaming clients do a good job with just about anything you throw at them across a 100 mb/s wired connection. They also have no problem with content from top notch streaming services like those used by Netflix or the PlayOn streaming service we subscribe to. But anything coming from less capable services like those behind the free “Video Feeds” that come with the FAT will almost invariably begin lagging after 1/2 hour or so over a wireless link. For that the answer continues to be the same: a date with a ladder and 100 feet of CAT-5e cable this Spring.

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