Design
Not too long ago, wireless routers for the home were little more than unattractive plastic black boxes with flashing green lights in front and protruding antenna out the back. Nowadays, though, home networking manufacturers are putting a little more effort into their designs. The AU$399 DIR-655 Xtreme N Gigabit router sports a white facade contrasted with a band of black rubber across its LED strip. White it may be, but it lacks the iPod inspired minimalism of the Netgear WNR834B. Still the D-Link's not a bad looker ... for a router.
Features
From its rear, it sports an array of three detachable and adjustable antennas, four gigabit Ethernet LAN ports, an Internet connection Ethernet port and a USB port specifically for memory keys loaded with Windows Connect Now information.
Although there are prominent stickers everywhere exhorting you to install the supplied software first, the router works straight out of the box. We wouldn't run the router with these settings for long though, as the wireless network is not encrypted. It is, therefore, vulnerable to use and abuse by anyone nearby who might be curious or malicious enough. Reconfiguring the router to use WEP or the various varieties of WPA is simple, even for the uninitiated. From the router's web-based interface, there are wizards to step users through the process of configuring wireless security and Internet connectivity.
Setting up or tweaking the router was an exercise in frustration, however, because almost every setting change required a reboot of the router to apply, with each reboot taking about 20 seconds.
Performance
Based on the draft 802.11n wireless standard -- commonly referred to as Draft-N -- the D-Link DIR-655 Xtreme N Gigabit router promises a lot, like sustained wireless transfer rates of around 200Mbps (twenty times that of 802.11g) and a range of 50 metres. Testing for wireless claims are carried out by manufacturers in controlled environments that are free of the radio interference, walls and sundry solid objects which pepper the world in which we live.
To test the D-Link's bold claims, we used D-Link's DWA-645 RangeBooster N 650 PCMCIA network card attached to our laptop. Even with the laptop in the same room as the router, we were unable to attain the claimed 200Mbps. Despite a claimed signal strength of 300Mbps, we reached an average of just 28Mbps during a 4GB file transfer. In other rooms and at a distance of roughly 15-30 metres, reported signal strength dropped to 250Mbps with our file transfer averaging out at 20Mbps. At the edge of the router's claimed range, 50 metres, web surfing brought back memories of the days of dial-up internet, while our file transfer speed dropped to 260Kbps.
Our office probably has more radio interference, walls and other solid objects than your average house or apartment. However, with a wireless-G router -- a two year old Linksys WRT-54G, if you must know -- we achieved performance that was only a few shades below the DIR-655's: 16Mbps in the same room as the router; 16Mbps in different rooms 15-30 metres out; and 190Kbps at 50 metres.
If you're hoping that Draft-N will solve problems you might be having with your current wireless set-up, we'd advise you to check out our tips for improving wireless network performance first. If you must have a Draft-N router and the D-Link's AU$399 price is too rich, there are cheaper alternatives out there which do without the DIR-655's gigabit Ethernet ports.
Add Your Review 11