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Thursday, Apr 25, 2002
Home Networks
April 24, 2002
Just as I was about to order some ISDN equipment, I noticed an article in a local weekly. The head line is "High-speed Internet access in Campbell is a real problem". No shit! Campbell is right in the middle of Silicon Valley, and the best most people can do is about 24kbaud over POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service).
Luckily, there's a little company whose office is about 2 blocks from me that offers wireless service -- decent data rates at decent prices. They do need to do a little something about their marketing. Other than that article, they're damn near invisible.
So now I'm looking into the SOHO (Small Office/Home Office) WiFi router market. What a freaking mess. A couple dozen companies are producing various highly technical products that cost between $139.95 and $159.95. This is not a business to be in. It's clear to me that there will be a shake-out, but I can't really tell who's going to win. The only consolation is that I will be able to by a better product next year for $89.95 if I pick the wrong vendor this time around.
Now I just need to narrow it down to the best unit with 56k modem backup, a decent firewall, good proxy servers, easy yet powerful configuration software, good tech support, a few 10/100 base T ports and a decent 802.11b radio. And a print server would be nice.