17. Performance Improvement - 11g and RangeMax

• WPN824 RangeMax...
• • Newegg.com
  • $69.99
• • NextWarehouse.com
  • $59.84
• • Directron
  • $59.99
• • Mwave.com
  • $65.52
• • TECH ON WEB
  • $66.71

My final series of tests aimed to test NETGEAR's claim "RangeMax is 100% compatible with your existing 802.11b/g products and will boost their range and speed by up to 50%" (from the product's web page under "Range Matters") As I did with the similar True MIMO testing, I didn't get into calculating percentages but instead used the same comparative approach.

The basis of comparison is my standard four location test done with a Linksys WRT54G (original version) router (upgraded to 2.04.4 firmware) and WPC54G original version card (with WinXP 3.30.15.0 driver) in my Dell Inspiron 4100 WinXP Home SP2 notebook. The results for the uplink direction are in Figure 37 and show a significant drop in performance (under 8Mbps) for any location that had a wall or two between client and router.

Figure 37: Four Location uplink throughput - 11g STA and AP
(click on image to enlarge)

Figure 38 shows what happened when I substituted the NETGEAR WPN824 RangeMax router for the WRT54G. I wouldn't really call the results an improvement, especially considering the high throughput variation.

Figure 38: Four Location uplink throughput - 11g STA, RangeMax AP
(click on image to enlarge)

Figure 39 shows what happens when RangeMax is used on the client end, with the WRT54G put back into place and the NETGEAR WPN511 client substituted for the WPC54G. Average throughputs for Locations 2 through 4 are definitely improved and throughput variation considerably reduced.

Figure 39: Four Location uplink throughput - RangeMax STA, 11g AP
(click on image to enlarge)

But unlike my experience mixing True MIMO and 11g clients, running the same experiments in the downlink direction produced much different results.