In Home Impressions
Here's where
things get a bit convoluted. Initially, all appeared well with the first sample
unit (Firmware Version V1 Rel 5D), until I ran into these issues.
(1) If the internet
connection was lost for any amount of time and then was regained, the Wavebase
froze and had to be cleared and restarted.
(2) I had difficulty setting up the a static LAN IP to any number other
than XXX.XXX.XXX.001.
(3) No 128-bit WEP key would work.
(4) The firmware refused to upgrade, so flashing to a newer one (that may
have solved some of the issues) was impossible.
(5) Wireless signal strength and quality appeared suspiciously low even
at small distances (say 3-6 feet).
So I did what most people
do and contacted Nexland for a second sample. When the second sample arrived
I retested and this is what I found.
(1) If the internet
connection was lost for any amount of time and then was regained, the Wavebase
froze and had to be cleared and restarted.
(2) Newer firmware solved this issue (Version V1 Rel 4N)
(3) No 128-bit WEP key would work.
(4) At the time of this review, there was no newer firmware available so
upgrading was not tested.
(5) Wireless signal strength remains far too low but the quality of the
signal improved an average of 10-20% depending on the conditions.
Using the gigabit network cards and some slick IBM 120GXP HD's, I was able
to measure a throughput of 9.5MB/s, higher than Nexland's rating of 8MB/s.
However, the 11Mbps wireless claim is fairly well known to be wildly optimistic.
Forcing a manual client setting of 11Mbps produced only a 4.89Mbps result.
Lowering this value to 5.5Mbps reduced the tested throughput to 3.58Mbps.
I did have great success
with the exposed host feature. I tried both a single IP and a range of IPs.
This was an extraordinarily handy feature when making fine adjustments from
a completely different location.
Lastly, running an Unreal
Tournament server proved simple and secure, just don't enable WinXP's firewall
capabilities on a wired client because any wireless client won't be able to
connect to your LAN.
