I have previously tried to use wireless both at home and at work. I had nothing but trouble with 802.11b, and it's all down to the frequency.

2.4 ghz - nowadays at least - is a heavily utilised frequency which shares all manner of "noise" - such as microwave ovens. Add to this all the miscellaneous 2.4 ghz cordless phones, game controllers, television repeaters .. and you get a LOT of noise.

Unfortunately everywhere I tried to use 802.11b seemed to have something which interfered. Especially at home where we have a 2.4 ghz cordless phone - and boy does that interfere!

So I came down with a serious mistrust of the 2.4 ghz frequency. And when 802.11a - which runs over 5 ghz - devices arrived, I used the principle of "once bitten, twice shy" and didn't go with it.

Now we have 802.11g - still based on 2.4 ghz. Both 802.11a and 802.11g can support up to 54Mbps speeds. I won't go into the details of the 2 standards, but suffice to say that 802.11g interoperates with 802.11b, and is pretty much the industry accepted standard. After much soul-searching on my behalf - let's face it, I was sick to death of having to patch in my notebook all the time - I decided to give it a try.

Having a mistrust of the 2.4 ghz frequency meant that I wasn't going to jump in with both feet. I decided to go with a "dual-band" solution - hoping that if 802.11g couldn't do the job, then 802.11a would. I must point out at this point that, given the 2.4 ghz cordless phone, I really did expect to have no luck with 802.11g.

We have lift-off!

After a little research and discussion with colleagues, I decided on the Netgear FWAG114 Dual Band Wireless VPN Firewall, and the Netgear WAG511 Dual Band Wireless PC Card (which I needed since at the time I was still using my Dell Inspiron 8100 which had no integrated wireless).

These devices offer connection to either 802.11a or 802.11b/g wireless networks. The usefulness in particular of a dual-band wireless PC card can't be underestimated. These will let you roam to either the 2.4ghz or 5ghz ranges - meaning that if you have differing standards at customers or your own remote sites, you can still connect. Naturally, the same should apply to the dual band router - irrespective of the wireless card that the user possesses, they should still be able to make a connection.

The FWAG114 wireless router in particular was quite costly - even now the list price at Harris Technologies is AUD$659, as opposed to AUD$279 for an 802.11g  based wireless router. Nonetheless, you get quite a bit of bang for your buck.

The WAG511 currently retails at roughly AUD$195, and is marketed as a "Tri-band" PC card. Strictly speaking, this is not correct - since both 802.11b and 802.11g shared the same frequency. You can also buy a PCI equivalent - the WAG311 retails at AUD$239, but I have not had the opportunity to use this card.

Fig 1. Netgear FWAG114 Dual Band Wireless Prosafe VPN Firewall Router

Fig 2. Netgear WAG511 Dual Band Wireless PC Card

Houston, we have a problem - well, partially

It didn't take me long to find out that I pretty much still have the same problem with 2.4 ghz. Nonetheless, the reliability was still better than my original attempt, but the fact that remains that periodic dropouts of the network do occur - usually necessitating the ejection of the wireless card (or disablement in the case of my Dell Inspiron 5150, since the wireless is built-in). What made it funny, though, was the number of times I asked my wife to turn on the microwave or make a phone call in order to verify that the problem was definitely the frequency and not any other problem.

Conversely, over 802.11a on the 5 ghz frequency, I have no dropouts whatsoever. And I would have tolerated very occasional dropouts. Luckily, I can force both the WAG511 and my notebook's built-in dual band wireless adapter to use 802.11a by default, and to fall back to 802.11b/g only when 802.11a is unavailable.

Hey, 802.11a's not perfect. It does have a shorter range than 802.11b/g. But for my purposes, I can go anywhere in the house or office with it, and still be connected at a reasonable speed with a reliable connection.

To the moon, Alice!

One thing that Netgear advertise is the ability to connect at up to 108Mbps with their dual-band router and card combination. For Australia, this is not LEGALLY the case. You certainly can configure the "Turbo" mode to be enable - as long as you select the router's country as United States. You really should not do this, however, as it may be a violation of your applicable local regulations. I certainly did have a brief test of the "Turbo" mode, and it did work well. But it seems to be a manufacturer-specific (read:proprietary) feature. The Broadcom wireless adapter integrated into the Inspiron 5150 certainly does not recognize Netgear's "Turbo" mode, and so I am stuck at 54 Mbps.

Stuck's a strong word though. Bear in mind that most broadband connections are no more than 1.5 Mbps at the most, and realise that browsing the net via wireless would not be likely to be adversely affected even via 802.11b at 11 Mbps!

I really like the Netgear FWAG114 and the WAG511. Once you get past the initial configuration - which perhaps is not to be taken lightly - the firewall works really well. And the card does exactly what it's supposed to.

Matt's Tip When it comes to wireless, there's one important thing to remember - you're sending your data through the air. And that means that unless you do something, your data can be "heard" by anywhere with an interest. And, of course, your little network is open to anyone interested. Most wireless devices nowadays will offer integrated security features. The FWAG114 and WAG511 both support up to 152-bit encryption - which can help stop your data from being intercepted - and MAC address filtering (which makes it possible to permit access to your network for only the wireless adapters that you specify. I highly recommend turning on a reasonable level of security on your wireless access point. You may take a slight performance hit, but if you're going to make your network available to anyone within range - they don't even have to be in the building - then you need to be serious about security.

Nothing's gonna stop us now

The Netgear equipment is very well featured - especially the firewall/router. It features sufficient functionality to connect your network to an ADSL modem (or other router, such as an ISDN router in my case) while giving peace of mind with the firewall rules blocking all inbound traffic by default.

I found that updating the firmware to v1.0.21 was necessary to get the most out of the FWAG114, but it otherwise works extremely well over 802.11a with both the WAG511 PC card in the Inspiron 8100, and my integrated Broadcom based wireless in the Inspiron 5150.

There's so much potential in the router and NIC that I would find it difficult to be concise. There is quite a large number of configuration options, including the build in DHCP server, firewall, VPN (which I have not as yet played with), email alerts for firewall rules, and routing. Suffice to say that it certainly seems sufficiently flexible to me to suit a small to medium business needs for what would be quite a reasonable price.

Summing Up

The Netgear FWAG114 appears to integrate well with wireless NICs from multiple vendors - which is a definite plus. The 802.11a functionality is terrific, and 802.11b/g is great when interference doesn't play a part. The highest level of functionality can be achieved using the WAG511 card, however the main benefit - Turbo mode - is not permitted by Australian regulations. It's reasonable therefore to assume that any dual band or single band NIC will be sufficient. For the purposes of this review, however, I did not have opportunity to test my 802.11b NIC.

I would highly recommend the FWAG114 and WAG511 to anyone without an existing wireless infrastructure who wants to implement a fast, flexible wireless network which is capable of withstanding interference though use of 802.11a, while permitting for non-dual band NICs by offering 802.11b/g.

Netgear FWAG114 and WAG511 Overall Score

Good: 54 Mbps in both 802.11a and 802.11g mode 802.11a is less susceptible to interference 802.11b/g provides access for people with "single band" cards that do not support 802.11a. Excellent implementation of integrated wireless, router, firewall, and VPN Regular firmware updates to FWAG114 iron out bugs found along the way

Bad:  802.11b/g is quite susceptible to interference Dual band card needs to be forced to 802.11a if you suffer from interference on 802.11b/g Firmware updates required for optimal reliability Wireless security is always more of an issue than wired security

Verdict: It's quite hard to do this review. Netgear is a no-nonsense type of company, and their products tend to just work. Where it doesn't work, they are usually pretty good with firmware updates. So it becomes difficult to pick out problems with the devices (other than the 802.11b/g interference problems, which is a general problem across all devices supporting these standards). Ultimately, the verdict on the firewall/router and the PC card is the same - they do the job, and do it well. I've deducted a couple of points for the need to update firmware before the device really showed its full potential, and for the 802.11b/g issue (which is perhaps unfair since it's not a Netgear specific issue). Matt's Score : 8 / 10