Any thoughts on Atheros & Netgear?

I'm thinking of upgrading my all-Linksys 802.11b home network to a
802.11g-based network.

I am very impressed with my daughter's Toshiba laptop built-in wireless
g which uses an Atheros chipset. "Very Strong" or "Excellent" signal
strength and no drop outs, where a Linksys wireless PCI card shows
"Good" or worse. This type of improvement is exactly what I need at
home, the G speed is just icing on the cake and will make my kids happy.
I don't even care about Super-G unless it will wash my car for me (where
do they get off saying 108Mpbs when the fine print says it's something
more like 60Mbps?)

The Atheros website says that the Netgear WG311T (PCI wireless card,
AG5002G) and WGT634U (4-port AP, AG5002AP-G) both use the AG5002 chipset
series with Super-G.

Are there any opinions on these Atheros chipsets or these Netgear cards?
How is Netgear email support (that's what I usually use) or how well do
they support their equipment in terms of firmware/drivers/software?

Personally, I'm thinking that buying from the same manufacturer and
matching up the chipsets might be a good way to avoid incompatibilities,
get good support and a solid home network.

Lance
*****

Lance <lltbhill@link_earth.net> wrote in news:(E-Mail Removed):

> I am very impressed with my daughter's Toshiba laptop built-in wireless
> g which uses an Atheros chipset.

Could be laptop's antenna more than the chipset.

Some Laptops have 2+ antennas - and sometimes the entire screen is an
antenna.

--
Lucas Tam ((E-Mail Removed))
Please delete "REMOVE" from the e-mail address when replying.
http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/coolspot18/

Lance wrote:

> I'm thinking of upgrading my all-Linksys 802.11b home network to a
> 802.11g-based network.
>
> I am very impressed with my daughter's Toshiba laptop built-in wireless
> g which uses an Atheros chipset. "Very Strong" or "Excellent" signal
> strength and no drop outs, where a Linksys wireless PCI card shows
> "Good" or worse. This type of improvement is exactly what I need at
> home, the G speed is just icing on the cake and will make my kids happy.
> I don't even care about Super-G unless it will wash my car for me (where
> do they get off saying 108Mpbs when the fine print says it's something
> more like 60Mbps?)
>
> The Atheros website says that the Netgear WG311T (PCI wireless card,
> AG5002G) and WGT634U (4-port AP, AG5002AP-G) both use the AG5002 chipset
> series with Super-G.
>
> Are there any opinions on these Atheros chipsets or these Netgear cards?
> How is Netgear email support (that's what I usually use) or how well do
> they support their equipment in terms of firmware/drivers/software?

Netgear products are unsupported. Unless you regard automatically
emailed FAQs and unreturned calls to India as support.

>
> Personally, I'm thinking that buying from the same manufacturer and
> matching up the chipsets might be a good way to avoid incompatibilities,
> get good support and a solid home network.
>
> Lance
> *****

Thanks for that Larry. Nothing more frustrated then having an
undocumented problem, carefully crafting a detailed problem report, and
then receiving an empty-headed reply from customer support.

Well that's disappointing, but Netgear is now crossed off my list.

Lance
*****

Larry Riffle thought carefully and wrote on 8/29/2004 6:08 AM:

> Lance wrote:
>>
>> Are there any opinions on these Atheros chipsets or these Netgear
>> cards? How is Netgear email support (that's what I usually use) or how
>> well do they support their equipment in terms of
>> firmware/drivers/software?
>
>
> Netgear products are unsupported. Unless you regard automatically
> emailed FAQs and unreturned calls to India as support.

Lucas Tam thought carefully and wrote on 8/27/2004 11:53 PM:

> Lance <lltbhill@link_earth.net> wrote in news:(E-Mail Removed):
>>I am very impressed with my daughter's Toshiba laptop built-in wireless
>>g which uses an Atheros chipset.
>
> Could be laptop's antenna more than the chipset.
>
> Some Laptops have 2+ antennas - and sometimes the entire screen is an
> antenna.

That's interesting, Can an antenna make that much of a difference? I've
been eyeing some really long ones from Linksys that is supposed to
replace the OEM antennas. But at $70 each, I have to know they'll work
before I buy it.

There also seems to be a complete lack of consumer opinion on the
WGT634U. That's unusual for a product that's been out for 8 months.

Now I'm leaning back to Linksys and will be checking to see if it's
possible to match up Broadcom chipsets.

Thanks for the info,

Lance
*****

Lance wrote:

> Thanks for that Larry. Nothing more frustrated then having an
> undocumented problem, carefully crafting a detailed problem report, and
> then receiving an empty-headed reply from customer support.
>

Especially frustrating because I personally find them to have otherwise
one of the better product lines in their price class.

> Well that's disappointing, but Netgear is now crossed off my list.
>
> Lance
> *****
>
> Larry Riffle thought carefully and wrote on 8/29/2004 6:08 AM:
>
>> Lance wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Are there any opinions on these Atheros chipsets or these Netgear
>>> cards? How is Netgear email support (that's what I usually use) or
>>> how well do they support their equipment in terms of
>>> firmware/drivers/software?
>>
>>
>>
>> Netgear products are unsupported. Unless you regard automatically
>> emailed FAQs and unreturned calls to India as support.

On Sun, 29 Aug 2004 07:08:04 -0700, Lance <lltbhill@link_earth.net>
wrote :

>Thanks for that Larry. Nothing more frustrated then having an
>undocumented problem, carefully crafting a detailed problem report, and
>then receiving an empty-headed reply from customer support.
>
>Well that's disappointing, but Netgear is now crossed off my list.
>
Don't rely on just one opinion - Netgear in Australia is well
supported and very responsive from my experience.

I bought a DM602 ADDSL modem and a MR814 wireless router, but when I
tried to set it up, the modem wouldn't connect or even display the
setup page. I rang Netgear tech sp, got on quickly, and the tech
spoke Oz, not Hindu. The guy had me run some tests, then said the
modem was faulty and he would send a replacement. I thought "oh yes,
I wonder when" but it arrived by courier the next morning, and worked
fine.

I have had no trouble with the modem or the router since that - it all
works well both on wireless and ethernet with good range throughout
all rooms in my unit - which has triple brick walls, and in the
garden.

I'm also using an Atheros wifi with AR5001X based miniPCI card in my
Toshiba laptop, and it is excellent. The range with the built-in
antennas in the Toshiba is significantly better than the range
achieved by the two other laptops using the network, both IBM's, which
use PCMIA wifi cards with little antennas sticking out of the PCMIA
slots.

When I'm in the house I usually use the ethernet connection to do
system backups from the laptop to the desktop, as it runs at 100M
compared to the wireless (using b, not a or g) at only 11M. But the
11M is quite OK for Internet access with 4 computers sharing the
512KBPS ADSL connection.

Just my 2c worth.

--
Regards,
Peter Wilkins

Larry Riffle <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in news:cgskfv$148s$1
@f04n12.cac.psu.edu:

> unreturned calls to India as support.

I've successfully RMAed 2 Netgear products. No problems here.

--
Lucas Tam ((E-Mail Removed))
Please delete "REMOVE" from the e-mail address when replying.
http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/coolspot18/

Lance <lltbhill@link_earth.net> wrote in news:(E-Mail Removed):

> That's interesting, Can an antenna make that much of a difference?

Yes ; )

If you havea good antenna... you can get ranges in the miles (literally!)

--
Lucas Tam ((E-Mail Removed))
Please delete "REMOVE" from the e-mail address when replying.
http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/coolspot18/

Lance <lltbhill@link_earth.net> wrote in news:(E-Mail Removed):

> Well that's disappointing, but Netgear is now crossed off my list.

Netgear is fine... They're level of support is on par with Dlink, Linksys,
or any other consumer brand of router.

I never had any trouble getting my netgear hardware replaced.

--
Lucas Tam ((E-Mail Removed))
Please delete "REMOVE" from the e-mail address when replying.
http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/coolspot18/