J . M A I L

Why I probably won’t get a new router or phone… just yet

Recently my phone broke and at the same time I noticed my router starting to be somewhat unusable when I had more then two computers connected to it (I have up to 5 computes connected on an average night).

These two events have lead me to start reading about routers and phones and so far I am unimpressed.

Starting with routers… the n standard has been very recently ratified and is out of draft 2.0. New routers supporting full ‘n’ should be on the way. The standard calls for dual band at a minimum along with faster speeds than draft ‘n’. It will also support multi-band but seeing as how pretty much every laptop has single band n what is really the point? Will existing draft n routers be upgradable to full ‘n’ with new firmware? Probably but who knows.

What I want router that is sub $100, that support an open source firmware like dd-wrt or tomatoe, supports gigabit wired connections, has at least dual band, ideally with multi input and output. So far such an ‘n’ router does not exist. I think I will wait as full ‘n’ routers are bound to ship soon. The other option is dropping a lot of cash on a really new draft 2 router and hoping dd-wrt support comes out.

As for phones, Telus is terrible. None of the current phones they offer will fully support the new speeds offered by the new wireless network they are launching in Jan. That means I could wait for telus to release the new phones in jan or switch to rogers and get an android. Not sure what to do but more and more I am leaning toward switching away from telus.

What do you guys and girls think?