Road basics: Comprehensive Test of wireless broadband Routers

There are still many things worth learning about wireless broadband routers. Here we mainly introduce the detailed performance variables of wireless broadband routers, including the similarities and differences of security control and wpa psk encryption. Among all the participating products, there are multiple products located at the 10GE wireless network. What is the gap between wireless M connections and Fast Ethernet? We sampled and tested the performance of a four-port 10/100 Mbps switch built into a Wireless Broadband Router, And the TCP throughput of the two laptops connected to the switch reached 90.684 Mbps.

The 10-Gigabit wireless connection seems to have narrowed the distance from Fast Ethernet. From another point of view, the users on the cable switch port exclusively occupy Mbps of bandwidth. The wireless client accesses the AP to share bandwidth. When the number of clients increases, the bandwidth allocated to each client decreases sharply. We tested the throughput (WLAN-WLAN) with Gbit/s access between two laptops, while the Wireless Broadband Router maintains default parameters except the SSID and working mode, the total throughput is only 11 Mbps. This is also in stark contrast to the results of the WLAN-LAN we tested earlier.

Slice performance variable

Different laptops: Some laptops do not work well with NICs, and the results are amazing. We replaced three laptops at a distance of 2 meters with the same configuration. The measured throughput was 9, 19, and 28 Mbps respectively. 9 Mbps makes us very confused, so close distance, without direct obstacles, the NIC Signal display is only 70 ~ 80%. Maybe PC Card Bus has poor compatibility. In actual tests, we made a great deal of effort. We selected one of several brand new laptops with a strong display signal (more than 90%) for all NICs at a distance of 2 meters.

Different communication directions: in the test of the LAN-LAN, we simulate the topology of downloading files from the wired port server. However, it must be noted that the transmission direction has a certain impact on the results, and there is no consistent law. Taking the two products of D-LINK as an example, Figure 3 shows that the performance of DI-624 + is less than 30 Mbps, But we test that the file transmission performance from wireless to wired can reach 33 Mbps. The DI-624, on the contrary, has a throughput of around 40 Mbps from wireless to wired.

Distance Vs shielding: when the distance is increased to 40 meters, the communication quality changes. First, the client access point is separated by two walls and two elevators. The wireless connection of all manufacturers is disconnected and the communication cannot continue. However, when we bypass the elevator, we can still access the Internet at a distance of 40 meters. At this time, although the signal strength is weak, it still reaches the access rate of 1 Mbps. Considering that the bandwidth bottleneck for users to access the Internet is at the egress rather than the local port, we should say that these products still have good availability over long distances. Of course, the premise is that there should be no metal between the Wireless Broadband Router and the client to generate a shield that causes great attenuation of the signal.

Similarities and differences in security control

Because of the broadcast mechanism of wireless signals, it is best for users to adopt encryption mechanism when using it, but will the encrypted performance be significantly reduced? In addition, are these SOHO network products vulnerable to DoS attacks? We found that different encryption methods have different effects on performance. The wpa psk encryption method has almost no impact on the performance of half of the products under test, while the other half has a slight decrease. Most products fell in front of DoS attacks, D-Link DI-624 + and DI-624 and Buffalo WZR-RS-G54 in front of the attack tenacious performance. Although SOHO products are not as likely to be vulnerable to DoS attacks as those in the campus network, it is naturally difficult for small companies to have this feature in their networks.

Wpa psk Encryption

With the Vendor Wireless Network Card, and performance test in the WLAN-WAN topology is the same, the difference is that the use of wpa psk encryption. Several of these products only support TKIP instead of AES, so we use TKIP. If you compare it with d4's, you will find that the encrypted performance of some products has not changed (as shown in d4's d4's ). For products that use TKIP encryption without degrading the performance, we sampled and tested its AES encryption, and found that the performance dropped by more than 20%.

It was observed that D-Link DI-624 + and Cisco Linksys WRT54GS provide the most adequate encryption methods including WPA2. It is particularly worth mentioning that Cisco Linksys WRT54GS supports SecureEasySetup (SES) technology, enabling one-click Wireless LAN Settings and WPA activation. In an environment that supports SES, you only need to press the SES button on the Wireless Broadband Router to establish a VPN connection between devices and automatically Set the network SSID (Service Set Identifier) to activate WPA security protection. After you add a new device that supports the SES technology to the WLAN, repeat the preceding steps to automatically complete the configuration of the new device and install the WPA key on all devices with access permission. Buffalo's AOSS (AirStation one-key security system) is also highly recommended. With AOSS, users can quickly establish secure wireless connections. AOSS can automatically detect and configure other wireless devices and clients with AOSS. Once a new device is added, the security level supported by all devices on the network is automatically reached.

DoS Attacks

It is said that Buffalo and D-Link products are tenacious because they can not only continue to be managed during the attack, but also the wireless client can continue to upload files to the FTP server, ixChariot communication pairs can also establish TCP connections and complete throughput tests. (As shown in the following table) it must be noted that I have not found any configuration options for anti-DoS attacks in the above products, the feedback from D-Link engineers is that the product automatically recognizes and controls abnormal traffic. Although there are clear anti-DoS attack items on the configuration interface of the TP-LINK, but after we start the defense, it still fails to effectively ensure the operation of legal communication, you can only manage devices on the Web.