Netgear WGU-624 Wireless Router and WG511T PC Card

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If you have more than one computer in your home (or at work), then you will want, at some point or other, to network the computers together. Networking a small group of computers now is pretty easy. In fact, one can run down to the nearest *mart and buy a small router, switch, or combo pack. Today I will review two products for creating a wireless network at home, Netgear's WGU-624 Wireless Router and the WG511T Wireless PC Card.

The Need

As I may have mentioned previously, I have a pair of laptop computers, neither of which has integrated wireless capability. They do, however, have PCMCIA (PC Card) slots. Couple that with the lack of a wired network in the front of my house, and a wireless solution seems to be the way to go.

Wireless networking and the IEEE

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, known as the IEEE, is a non-profit group which works to enhance the advancement of technology (one would assume to make the world a better place). Among other things, they assign committees and subcommittees to hash out standards and protocols for electrical and electronic equipment, including computers and computerized systems. Each committee is assigned a number. For instance, committee 1284 handles the parallel port protocols and standards, 1394 handles the "FireWire" and "i.Link" high speed serial bus, and 108 deals with networks such as Local Area Networks (LAN) and Metropolitan Area Networks (MAN).

The 802 committee is broken down into working groups, each with its own assigned number. Group 3 deals with the Ethernet protocol, so anything falling under their cognizance would be assigned a number 802.3 just as anything having to do with the work of group 11 (Wireless LAN) falls under the moniker of 802.11 (or more properly, IEEE 802.11).

So when it comes to wireless LAN design, management and communications protocols, the 802.11 group dictates what's what. If a manufacturer wants their product to work with anyone else's of the same type, then they must make that product compliant with the applicable IEEE standard. They can (and do) advertise such compliance with their products. This is a good deal for consumers, because this means that they can mix and match equipment to get exactly what they want for, say, their network. For those cutting-edge types, though, there is a bit of a problem.

The problem is that sometimes a company will build a product that extends beyond the scope of the current protocol. Many times, someone has submitted a new protocol to the appropriate committee or group, and in anticipation of the committee's approval a manufacturer will go ahead and sell a product listing the new (but not approved) standard. A good example of this are "wireless n" solutions, though that protocol (IEEE 802.11n) has not yet been approved by the IEEE.