How We Test - Wireless Routers

We use NetIQ's Qcheck to test Wireless Routers.

NOTE: We test the wireless and router portions of wireless routers separately.

Here's a diagram of the test setup:

Wireless Router Test setup diagram

Equipment:

LAN and WAN Ethernet Clients:
     "Beige box" Celeron 300A, 128MB, Win98
                                          or
     "Compaq 5451, AMD K-6 500MHz, 92MB, Win98SE
Wireless Client:
Compaq 1650 (Pentium 266), 64MB, Win98SE

Here's how we test:

Location and Test Condition Details - Wireless Tests:

Testing is done in recently constructed wood frame two floor residence. Home has heating/cooling metal ductwork throughout. The Wireless Router (WR) is placed on a table away from metal cabinets and RF sources in a corner lower level room for all tests. For each of the four conditions, the Qcheck suite of tests is run between the wireless client and a LAN Ethernet client. The router portion of the product is not used in these tests.

Condition #1: WR and wireless client in same room, approximately 10 feet apart.
Condition #2: Client in upper floor room directly above WR, approximately 15 feet apart. No metal ductwork between WR and client.
Condition #3: Client on same floor as WR but in another room approximately 50 feet away. Walls, but no metal ductwork between the client and WR antennas.
Condition #4: Client on upper floor at opposite end of residence, approximately 55 feet away. Walls, floor, and probable metal ductwork between WR and client.

Location and Test Condition Details - Router Tests:

The Qcheck suite of tests is run on the router portion of the WR between Ethernet based clients on the WAN and LAN sides of the router. The wireless portion of the product is not used in these tests. A suite of WAN-to-LAN tests is run to simulate "normal" router operation. Then the same suite of tests is run from LAN-to-WAN, to simulate the performance that a LAN based server being accessed from the Internet (WAN) side of the router would experience. Due to the way that Qcheck works, the LAN client is either placed in the router's "DMZ" (all ports opened to the client), or the specific ports that Qcheck needs are forwarded/mapped to the LAN client