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New flavor of
WiFi increases
network range

When Walt Mossberg, the consumer technology columnist for the Wall Street Journal, wrote a rave review of the new Belkin MIMO standard wireless base station back in January, I knew I had to check it out.

Mossberg is usually very conservative in his assessments and I figured the Belkin product might be good enough to improve the wireless reception at my own home, which is less than perfect.

I had a chance to road test this product (called the Belkin Wireless Pre-N Router) and am happy to say that I share Mossbergs opinion of the Belkin Wi-Fi base station--it is excellent.

The new device goes a long way to solve a problem that has always plagued previous 802.11 wireless networks -- inside a home reception tends to vary a great deal depending on the configuration. This is especially true in larger homes with multiple floors.

Why is this? Walls, furniture, appliances and the like can impede coverage making it necessary add one or more extra transmission devices to boost coverage. Belkin's MIMO technology (which stands for Multiple Input, Multiple Output) addresses this issue by extending range and increasing output substantially. The technology is called "Pre N" because the next standard for Wi-Fi (802.11n), has not been formally approved by the standards organizations.

Despite the name "Pre N," which makes it sound like it's not ready for prime time, there's nothing flaky about it. I tested it at my home (replacing my older 802.11b) and it worked flawlessly from anywhere in my houseeven in rooms that previously had poor or no coverage.

Note that in addition to the router (which costs $150), you'll need to purchase a wireless network card for your laptop (around $100 or less), if you want to take full advantage of the range and 108 Mbps bandwidth that the technology provides. I tested the Belkin card with my three year old IBM ThinkPad laptop running Windows XP and the setup was simple.

For those of you who have wired cable router/firewalls and don't want to replace them with this product you can also easily use the router simply as an access point. Setup for the most part was simple but I did need to make a few phone calls to tweak the device. (I find you almost never set up any new device like this on the first attempt). This gave me the opportunity to check out the tech support, which was located in the Philippines and was first class. There was no waiting for service, the reps were very knowledgeable and probably spoke better English than I did.

The quality of the MIMO technology (which is also available from other manufacturers such as Linksys and Netgear) was clearly better than my old 802.11b. Speed in most rooms was indistinguishable from my desktop computer, which was hooked up directly to a cable modem. I walked with my laptop around my home around into the backyard and even took it over to my neighbors garage, approximately 200 feet away from the base station. It didn't work inside his garage but the moment I was outside the garage door I could still get excellent coverage.

This brings up an important issue. With the range of this product youll need to make sure and utilize the unit's (built in) security measures. My neighbor told me with undisguised glee that it was easy for his middle school daughter to tap into my network so that was all the cue I needed.

If your existing wireless home network suffers from weak or dead spots, I think youll be very pleasantly surprised by the Belkin Pre-N. These products are available at CompUSA and other local electronics stores.

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