picking a wireless router: dual band support

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

[Warning: this is long and rambling]

I still haven't found: a clear, simple, and reliable way of finding
the best available routers for *wrt.  One reason is surely that there
are several dimensions that one might care about so there isn't a
simple answer.

I just bought my first thing with 802.11n (not counting a router that
I've loaned).  This brings into focus Lennart's insistence on dual-band
support.  I think he is right and I'm glad he brought it to my
attention.

What is dual band?  802.11b and 802.11g both use the 2.4GHz unlicenced
radio band.  802.11a (limited takeup) uses the 5GHz band.  Some (by no
means all) 802.11n systems support both of these bands.  All 802.11n
systems seem to support the 2.4GHz band.  So dual-band as means
supporting both of these bands.

Why does dual band matter?  Because so many things crowd the 2.4GHz
band: baby monitors, microwave ovens (leakage), Bluetooth, etc.  See
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_interference_at_2.4_GHz>.
The 5GHz band is less crowded.

This advantage might decline if and when dual-band 802.11n becomes
ubiquitous.  It is perhaps telling that there is no wikipedia article
on 5GHz interference.

I just bought a netbook that has 802.11n but is only single band.  The
specs for this device were hardly available -- I didn't even know that
it did 802.11n -- so I'm not disappointed.

How can you tell if a device has dual band support?  I guess that in
most cases it is advertised as a feature if the device supports it.
A second clue is that if 802.11a and 802.11n are both listed as
supported, then I would think that the 802.11n will support both
bands.

Some routers can simultaneously use both bands and some switch between 
them.  That probably matters.  Most of the google hits for "simultaneous 
dual-band wireless router" refer to certain Linksys devices; it may be 
that there is a different terminology used by other manufacturers.

I previously said that this router was a good deal:
  <http://www.bewawa.com/tp-link-ultimate-wireless-n-300mbps-gigabit-router-w-3-detachable-antennas-wr1043nd.html>
  <http://www.tp-link.com/products/productDetails.asp?class=&content=spe&pmodel=TL-WR1043ND>
But it doesn't support the 5GHz band so I will no longer consider it.

It looks as if the Linksys WRT400n is the least expensive simultaneous 
dual-band router around here (as low as $80 from Sig Electronics but 
normally $100).  OpenWRT support looks to be coming along nicely.  But 
other features might rule this one out: it does not support gigabit 
ethernet.
--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://gtalug.org/
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://gtalug.org/wiki/Mailing_lists