AntiochCali

iTrader: (1)

I have also installed Linksys (now owned by Cisco), Cisco (Very expensive), Dlink and a number of off brand names. They all work about the same for me - often poor range for the "G" stuff and much better range for the "B" stuff.

The other problem I've run into is that everything except Linksys requires very particular drivers, this is especially true with the Dlink stuff, very inconvenient. What I mean is that I bought 6 wireless devices, all the same model number at the same time but they all have different ROM levels that require different drivers. This is true even though the driver disks look identical, you can't mix up the drivers and the hardware. With both Dlink and Netgear, I've had stuff no work out of the box, the fix for Dlink IIRC was to update the FlashROM, but you had to call techsupport at Dlink for the file - I think Netgear had a bad serial number on the device and I had to get that from the tech support too.

I'm not a grand fan of the Linksys, but it pretty much always works out of the box. Poor reception like the guy above has will be true no matter which brand you use - Signal to Noise ratio on all the lower end stuff is around 40 db. For versatility, consider getting all USB wireless devices, no matter which brand you use, this allows you to move the antenna.

NOTE: There are external antennas you can purchase to increase range or make them directional to increase range even more. If your home/office is too large or the noise floor is too high, you can also install either an extender or a bridge and router to build addional networks.

Have a happy day.