I love this concept. Here's why I won't be buying one.

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JustNiz
JustNiz's picture
I love this concept. Here's why I won't be buying one.

HI,

This is my frst post here. I've just come across this product. I can't say enough how great I think it is that you guys are actually marketing an open router. I REALLY want this to succeed as a product because a big success here will send a very positive message to all other equipment manufacturers out there, about the reality that opensource and home developers/experimenters do exist as a larger group than they realise, and we are worth providing products and support for.

 Having said that, there are 2 things I think will be absolutely critical to a big sucess of this product that I feel are being totally ignored so will almost certainly cause this product to get overlooked by the marketplace.

 1) BETTER ADVERTISING. I'm a professional software developer, tech. enthusiast and general tweaker of home tech. I surf the net for hours every day (don't tell my boss) reading tech stuff yet even I've only just now found out about this product, and basically found this website almost by accident. The many Linux, opensource and mainstream hardware websites like "Toms Hardware" love to hear about this kindof thing. Send them one so they can do some reviewsand spread the word!!

 2) Add (draft) 802.11N support to it. G is so yesterday. Remember you're dealing with tech.geeks who by their nature are pushing boundaries so want the latest stuff, not some 4+ year old protocol. If his product had hardware that would support (draft) 802.11N I would definately buy one. The lack of draft N (as far as I can see from the website as it doesn't mention N anywhere) is the only reason I won't be buying one. If the product actually does have it, then tell people!!! please mention it somewhere on your website!!!

Once again, I want this whole idea of open products to take off, so please give this product the chance it needs to compete and succeed against other closed routers. There should really be no reason why anyone would choose to buy a closed-source rotuer over an open one, all other things being equal.

Trebonius
Trebonius's picture
The lack of advertising seems

The lack of advertising seems like an odd reason not to buy something. I agree that this needs to be bigger news, but I imagine that they're going to leave it to the community to spread the word. It makes sense, really, and if the unit is any good, the news will pick up steam on its own.

It seems like your time would be better spent telling others about this device rather than telling the people who know about it that not enough people know about it.

Draft N would be nice, I guess, though I don't currently own any compatible hardware. I expect that if this model does reasonably well, a higher-speed version will be forthcoming.

JustNiz
JustNiz's picture
It was the lack of draft N

It was the lack of draft N why I wont be buying it, not the lack of advertising. The advertising is just a suggestion.

Jes
Jes's picture
Ok, but draft N is just that:

Ok, but draft N is just that: a draft. Further, acrimony about the draft has kept all the 802.11N chip vendors at odds in general, as in: implement today and you might have a good chance to boat-anchoring yourself tomorrow.

http://articles.directorym.net/802_11n_Its_Never_Easy_Baltimore_MD-r8844...
http://www.networkworld.com/reviews/2006/080706-mimo-router-test-controv...
http://www.zdnet.co.uk/tsearch/802.11n+equipment+ieee.htm
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/communications/0,1000000085,39280962,00.htm
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/communications/0,1000000085,39287235,00.htm

Brandon C
Brandon C's picture
Maybe Netgear is testing this

Maybe Netgear is testing this product to see how it is received before thinking about doing an Open Router that supports N. Hard to say.

stevea
stevea's picture
JustNiz said:

JustNiz said:
It was the lack of draft N why I wont be buying it, not the lack of advertising. The advertising is just a suggestion.

What a tour de force of illogic !  You listed TWO reasons 1/ advertising, and 2/ lack of N.  Then as soom as you are challenged you back off item 1.  I'll ignore the foolishness of rejecting a product for lack of advertising.   As stated, 802.11N is desirable - *when it is finalized*, but until then it's just a proprietary guess that can dead-end a product.

Let's be clear on one other illogical point.  we all want more bandwidth, and lower latency, but this has nothing to do with a standard protocol being 4+yo.  Gigabit and 10gbit enet is 9yo.  The base 802 standards date from the late 1970s.  Network email protocol has had only microscopic changes in 25 years. Http protocol is almost 20yo.  Send us a message (if you can) once you've stopped using all these old protocols (lol) !   The important thing abt protocols is not their age but their effectiveness for a given application.

 "wot a maroon" - b.bunny 

-S

 

RoadRanger
RoadRanger's picture
NetGear's WNR834B V2 works

NetGear's WNR834B V2 works with DD-WRT and is Draft-N MIMO. Fry's was selling refurbs online for $25 delivered last I knew. I ordered one yesterday. Hopefully NetGear will start advertising/supporting this as open source soon?

VVV
VVV's picture
As for me, having double the

As for me, having double the RAM/flash size would be much more interesting than having 802.11n.

FRiC
FRiC's picture
I also want something with

I also want something with double the RAM and flash...

(I haven't bought a Netgear yet since it's not available to me locally. I just bought another WRT54GL earlier this week for testing.)

Schugy
Schugy's picture
I won´t buy draft hardware -

I won´t buy draft hardware - this already implies that it has issues or will be obsolete soon. I´d only like to upgrade from mini to standard dd-wrt if there was one that works with the WGR614L-EUS100

RoadRanger
RoadRanger's picture
Hey, I got my $25 WNR834B V2

Hey, I got my $25 WNR834B V2 yesterday and loaded DD-WRT on it no problem. While I only have "B" and "G" devices the MIMO feature gives me better connections than any other wireless I've had! For $25 who cares if it doesn't ever support the final "N"? Actually it does look like it has the hardware to do what should be the final "single band" version of "N" and NetGear is pretty honest about that if you read there product description. I don't live in a densely populated area so single band "N" will be fine if/when I decide to upgrade my clients - plus dual band "N" is big $$$ for little advantage to most home users.