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Hardware

Stick to Certified WiFi Gear

Gartner is warning against early adoption of 802.11n citing the need for more testing, and waiting for the specs to be truly finalized before adoption (likely 2007).

I couldn’t agree with them more. 802.11 gear is only good if the devices are “Certified” (not to be confused with “Compatible”). I’d bet that 90% of problems people have with wireless gear is simply because they choose “Compatible” rather than “Certified”. One meaning the manufacturer feels it’s good enough, the other meaning it’s up to the specifications.

I really don’t believe in “Turbo Mode”, and all these other proprietary addons to WiFi hardware. They can’t even get the basics right (look many still aren’t Certified).

Early on (I think it was 2001) I started playing with some early Linksys hardware, uncertified. A real drag. As soon as I started putting Certified equipment in place, the certified equipment worked flawlessly, while non-certified gear still had occasional problems. Now I’m only buying certified hardware, and everything runs very nicely. You especially see problems with non-certified gear when mixing brands. Right now I have 3 different WiFi Adapters connecting to an Access Point from yet another vendor. Not a problem.

A word of the wise, if you insist on reliability, always get certified. You can lookup your products here to see if they are.

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