What company/brand makes the best wireless router?

I have a Linksys that I am not too happy with, and I'm thinking about buying a new one. Who makes the best, most reliable router?

2006-01-13T15:12:49Z

The model is WRK54G...it came as part of the kit with a Notebook Adapter card as well.

It just seems unreliable. Every once in a while I lose internet connectivity, and I have to unplug the router's power and plug it back in to get it to work again. (This is the most annoying thing)

Also, I seem to lose connection speed. It always starts at 54 mbps (which I think is the max for wireless G) and then slowly drops all the way down to 1.0 mbps, despite a good signal strength...and this is from only about 3 feet away from the router. I have talked to Linksys's tech support, and they gave me a few things to try, but none seemed to help.

Anonymous2006-01-13T15:56:16Z

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There is no best one, however, your problems may be related to how you've set it up.

Things to do:

Turn off SSID broadcasting
Enable MAC address filtering
Turn on WEP or WPA encryption
Make sure you're on a clear channel

Lastly, other devices, such as some cordless phones (those running on the 2.4ghz frequency) etc, can interfere with your wireless router.

If you've done all those things, and you still have problems, there may be issue's with that particular router, i.e., maybe it's a lemon.

Werecow2006-01-13T15:06:19Z

You'll hear horror stories about routers from every company. In general, Linksys makes a decent router for general _consumer_ use. Over the past few years, they have become more reliable AND more user-friendly. As far as quality, the consumer-grade routers by Linksys, Netgear, Siemens, etc. seem to be about equal.

I've found several reports of problems similar to yours. A few suggestions to try (including checking for interference from 2.4GHz cordless phones, or upgrading the adapter card firmware) are at:

http://www.dslreports.com/faq/12948
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/maintain/wlansupp.mspx
http://www.dslreports.com/faq/wlan/60.0+Troubleshooting#12308

If nothing above helps, routers are inexpensive enough that it couldn't hurt to try another brand. As I said, most of the consumer grade units are of about equal quality. I've had very good luck with Siemens, but they don't seem to be available any more.

Speedy2006-01-13T15:50:11Z

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