Linksys Wireless-G / SRX Broadband Router

| Wireless Driver & Software

Wireless Tests – Throughput vs. Range

Since I previously did an in-depth look at True MIMO’s impressive performance vs. range capabilities [see Do Extended-range WLAN technologies deliver?], I decided to use the GX to check the mixed mode performance of Airgo’s True MIMO technology.

NOTE: Testing was done with a Linksys WPC54GX Cardbus client card in a WinXP Home SP2 Fujitsu S2020 laptop unless otherwise noted

I’ll first focus on the performance of the GX product pair themselves and then turn to some interoperability testing. First, let’s look at my standard four-location indoor tests using Ixia’s IxChariot. Figure 12 shows uplink (STA to AP) and Figure 13 downlink (AP to STA)

Figure 12: Four Location Throughput test – Uplink
(click on image to enlarge)

Figure 13: Four Location Throughput test – Downlink
(click on image to enlarge)

The composite plots make it difficult to tell, but the highest variation in the uplink tests came from Locations 2 and 3 and Location 3 for the downlink. (Sharp-eyed readers could figure this out by looking at the lower Minimum throughput and higher 95% Confidence Interval values in the larger plots.)

But even with this range-shifting going on, the lowest average throughput measured in all four locations was 29.4Mbps with five out of eight tests producing average throughputs over 40Mbps! This is simply unequaled by any other wireless products or technology that I’ve tested.

Using Qcheck, I also checked Response (ping) time at Location 1 and got average and max response times of 1mS. Running UDP streaming performance at the same Location yielded no lost data and 500kbps throughput at a 500kbps stream rate. When I pushed the stream rate to 1Mbps, lost data ran around 2-3% with throughput dropping to around 880kbps.