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The interesting tests are Conditions 3 and 4. The low (and conflicting)
numbers are due to the ORiNOCO driver's behavior of dropping to 5.5Mbps
mode when the Signal-to-Noise (SNR) value was around 9-10dB. Antenna
position for the Condition 3 and 4 tests was very critical and the numbers
shown could be changed dramatically by moving the laptop a foot or so
or by rotating it to a different position. Since there isn't a way
to force the rate mode, the only thing you can do is try different antenna
positions if you have a marginal signal condition. I did find that
the Test History feature was helpful in diagnosing the cause of the slow
performance.
The "Qcheck" column under "Transfer Rate" uses netIQ'sfree QCheck utility. The column
lists the results of a Qcheck TCP Throughput test, using a 1000kByte test
data size. Qcheck tends to show higher throughput numbers than my
simple file transfer test because it takes some transfer overhead out
of it's calculation.
We've found interesting results using the UDP streaming test on routers, so
thought we'd give it a shot with the ORiNOCO products. The interesting
result is that although the "Actual throughput" number dropped with
range, the "Lost Data" value was very low. Looks like the 802.11b
error correction works pretty well!
Summary
I'm not saying that I'm the smartest guy in the world, but given the
exposure I get to a wide range of products, I think I can tell when one
is going to give the average user a hard time. The RG-1000 is one
of those products. Once you get it working, it works well, but the
hassle that many users will have setting it up may make them give up in
frustration.
On the positive side, the Silver PC Card wireless client performed as
well as the average 802.11b card and had the best diagnostic displays
that I've seen. But the inability to force a bit rate and the driver's
tendency to keep switching between bit rates near the range limit could
make you wish you'd chosen another card that gives you control over these
parameters.
So as long as you're ok with using the RG1000 as a wireless to Ethernet bridge,
go ahead and give it a shot. Just leave the routing chores to something
more suited to the task.
66.7% | 
33.3% | out of 18 reviews 
