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Wireless at 125 megabits? yes, and pretty darn cheap, from USR

Mysteriously, although the first "125 megabit" WiFi wireless product has been announced (back in April) US Robotics is still not, officially, shipping it. But that isn't stopping people from selling it. And why not? After all, it is available!

Yes, confusing, isn't it! When asked "what's going on?" the mystery was explained by an Official Spokesman: "I really don't know." But the mystery is actually quite simple: it involves a beta version of the software, and a new security upgrade. Here's how it works:

The product is the "turbo" WiFi access point, the USR018054 802.11g Wireless Turbo Router, and its family of client network interface cards. When it was first announced, it was a unique product, where most 100 megabit devices worked by adding two channels together to give 100 megabits. This didn't: it was a lot cleverer.

Here's the relevant explanation, taken from the USR White Paper

"Even though the new 802.11g wireless networking products available are capable of a 54 Mbps signalling rate, the practical, or "actual," data throughput rate is more likely to be in the 10 - 12 Mbps range. That is, except when using U.S. Robotics 802.11g Wireless Turbo networking products. The new U.S. Robotics 802.11g Wireless Turbo portfolio of products with 100 Mbps Accelerator Technology is actually capable of delivering a signalling rate comparable to a 100 Mbps* wireless networking product, with all data transmission taking place on a single channel, leaving other channels open for a variety of other wireless devices."

"This translates to an actual data throughput of 20 Mbps - nearly double that of other 802.11g products."

And then, in April, USR announced that it was upgrading it. "U.S. Robotics Boosts 802.11g Wireless Speeds Up To A Blazing 125 Mbps," it crowed, promising the product for "early June."

"Robotics is blowing past 802.11g standard wireless speeds with its exclusive accelerator technology enhancement," the announcement stated, then.

"The company's latest firmware upgrade and driver update is capable of boosting wireless bandwidth performance from 100 Mbps up to 125 Mbps. By early June, the 125 Mbps upgrade will ship with all U.S. Robotics' 802.11g Wireless Turbo products. However, the company will support its existing 100 Mbps customers by offering a FREE download available at http://www.usr.com."

But if you visit the web site today, you'll find it still advertised as 100 megabits. On the face of it, a meaningless claim, since the 100 megabit figure actually means 20 megabits data payload, and so the 125 megabit figure certainly won't mean even half of 125 megabits.

So that was where we left it - until last week, a neighbour showed up, boasting about his 125 megabit USR wireless. Eh? A quick check of the web site finds:

> It's still beta

> The 100 megabit version it won't support WPA security, but the 125 megabit version does.

> It doesn't include all the optimisations in the beta, but will do, when released in the next few days

Inside it has packet bursting, and frame optimisation, in terms of changing packet size and that sort of thing.

The reason it's not official: as far as we can tell, it's simple ... there are still one or two problems with the beta software. And the reason it's available anyway? well, there were enough USR customers who really, really wanted the WPA feature that the company decided to put the code up for public release.

Full version is due out some time in September. About time to do some serious payload data speed checks, we think ...