TRENDnet TEW-633GR: 802.11n Draft 2.0 to the Rescue

Conclusion

While it's clear that 802.11n draft 2.0 performance is improving rapidly over its draft 1.0 predecessor, it's important to note that quoted maximum transfer rates are just that - maximum and not indicative of actual sustained transfer rates under a variety of conditions. This has always been the case with wireless networking, of course, where even half of the maximum theoretical performance is often unattainable. Hopefully operating efficiencies and improved interference rejection techniques will make their way into future firmware/drive releases. If so, maybe we'll find that we can get a little closer to that magical sustained 100Mbps point (throughout the home) where wireless performance finally matches or surpasses decade-old 100Base-TX wired technology.

Certainly, Draft 2.0 compliant products do breathe new life into this struggling standard, but there's still a ways to go before this technology is particularly relevant. In the meantime, for those that must go wireless there's no doubt that Draft-N 2.0 based components will provide you with the best possible experience. Consumers should feel fairly confident when making a purchase as there's no foreseeable reason that any draft 2.0 equipment they buy now should not be fully compliant with the final ratified 802.11n specification. A simple firmware update will be all that is required to update to the latest 802.11n standard - which likely won't be the case with Draft 1.0 products. One thing is for certain: the industry is pushing hard to make wireless N the new de facto standard.

As mentioned earlier, you would be somewhat crazy to run your network unencrypted and based on testing it looks as though there may not even be a performance gain by doing so. Keep in mind that WEP testing was not performed as we just do not believe that this is an acceptable method of encryption. Furthermore, since the wireless 802.11n specification does not support WEP encryption, choosing this option means that the router automatically falls back to legacy 802.11g/b mode thereby removing in one fell swoop any performance improvement you may have seen otherwise.


In the end, if you decide that wireless N is right for you, we strongly recommend that you buy your router and client cards from the same manufacturer. This is not because product lines from competing sellers are incompatible, but simply to avoid the inevitable finger pointing that results if you experience a problem. As we will see in the next article, this is a major concern for us after experiencing a few difficulties in this area. We can almost guarantee the first solution offered up during a friendly call to technical support will involve you running out to the store and buying their latest and greatest card and trying again. Plus, you will usually find that matched products do in fact work better together, at least to some extent. (We've found that some wireless chipsets appear to be "more compatible" with each other than others).

Even though we did not provide a direct performance evaluation against other 802.11n Draft 2.0 routers today, we can tell you that working with the TRENDnet TEW-633GR the past couple of weeks has reminded us just how good wireless performance can be. Future router reviews will build upon this base testing so that direct comparisons can be made between units along with a greater variety of test conditions. We hope to determine conclusively which manufacturer really deserves your money by the time we're through.

In the meantime, those that are in the market for a quality wireless Draft-N router will not go wrong by picking up TRENDnet's TEW-633GR and matching adapter cards. Our experience has been highly enjoyable - not once during our testing period did we experience any service interruption or anything less than outstanding performance from both the wired and wireless connected clients. This is something we certainly could not say last year about the earlier Draft-N products!