Asus WL-566gM MIMO Wireless Router - Review

[farhan]

Asus WL-566gM MIMO Wireless Router

The WL-566gM (as claimed by Asus) is the world's first 802.11g wireless router that is faster at transferring data than a wired 10/100 Ethernet network. It achieves this by using a technology called MIMO (multiple-in, multiple-out). This router uses the third generation of Airgo's True MIMO chipset.
The WL-566gM/106gM utilizes 240 MIMO Technology to harness multiple signal transmission pathways, created as the transmitted signal reflects off and refracts around objects causing what was once considered interference.
With clever signal processing, the WL-566gM manipulates that interference to boost a WLAN’s range and data transfer rate. This picture might clear what actually happens.

Features

The WL-566gM offers features like

• Actual throughput up to 100Mbps and more
• 8X the speed of standard 802.11g devices
• 8X the coverage of standard 802.11g devices
• Superior reception
• Fully compatible with IEEE 802.11b/g
• EZSetup: Setup wireless LAN in 2 easy steps
• Data Security: WPA2, WPA, WEP, ACL and SPI firewall

8X the speed and coverage

With "240 MIMO" technology, the WL-566gM boosts wireless transfer speeds by 8X compared with those of standard 802.11g devices. However, actual throughput will vary depending on the wireless environment and other parameters. This will be highlighted in the Testing section. The WL-566gM supports MIMO and a/b/g traffic on the same network, at the same time.

EZSetup: Set up wireless LAN in 2 easy steps

The WL-566gM automatically registers various wireless devices in seconds with just a press of the EZSetup button and through the EZSetup Wizard. This EzSetup wizard is really user friendly and will be extremely beneficial to the novices who just want to quickly set the device up. All you have to do is

• Push the EZSetup button on the back of the wireless router over 3 seconds until power LED is blinking.

• Press EZSetup icon in this wizard utility

• The wireless router is in a special EZSetup mode, and after 30 seconds the wireless client setting is restored in router.

The Product

The Bundle

Here is what you get when you buy the ASUS WL-566gM.

• ASUS WL-566gM MIMO router
• Asus Software and driver CD & manuals
• Power adapter for the router

Testing Environment

The maximum theoretically possible transfer rate it offers is 240Mbps which comes to about 30MBps. This is more than double of what a 100Mbps LAN offers - a mere 12.5MBps. However we all know that theoretical speeds are never reached due to data overheads and encryption, and this was also the case here.

Coverage

The router was setup in the upper story of my house and using laptop and a very neat software called Net Stumbler, I roamed around my house and measure the signal strength of the of the router. The results are shown in the screen shots below.

Within and nearby the room where the router was located. Radius <10m

Downstairs just below the room where the router was located. And the surrounding area of radius less than 15m

Again on the same floor as the router but a bit farther away . Radius was about 25m ( a couple of rooms away)

Data Transfer

To gauge the real-world Ethernet and wireless performance of the router, I connected two PCs to its 10/100 Ethernet ports and used a notebook equipped with an MIMO enabled wireless adapter (Asus WL-106gM) to conduct data transfer tests.
A 118MB file was transferred; first, over the 10/100 LAN ports at an average of 7.3MBps. This, in fact, is quite less than what theoretically is possible on LAN (12.5MBps).

Then the file was transferred over the wireless network with MIMO transfer rate set at 240. The laptop was less than 2 meters away from the router. The average transfer rate was about 5.95MBps.

So Asus’s claim that it is faster than wired network is a little doubtful. However, considering that this technology is still new and not yet been standardized by all the manufacturers it was still an admirable performance.
The same file was then transferred using only the regular 54mbps 802.11g technology and the average transfer rate was found out to be about 3.8MBps.


Note: Actual throughput will vary depending on the wireless environment and other parameters like data overhead and type of encryption. (I used WPA - TKIP)

Also 240 MIMO support is also required on the client side for maximum performance. I used Asus WL-106gM

Detailed Specs

Price

The WL-566gM is still to be launched here in Pakistan so the price in Pak Rupees is still to be decided. Anyhow its is retailing @ Newegg for $112 so taking an educated guess I would say its price in Pak rupees would be somewhere around Rs.9000. And since it requires 240 MIMO support on the client side for maximum performance you will need to get a MIMO enabled wireless adapter as well, which will only add to the cost.

Conclusion

The WL-566gM proved to be excellent for short-range high-speed data transfers. Though it claimed to match and beat the LAN transfer rates it wasn’t able to do so but it came very close and it was much faster than standard 802.11g. Overall the WL-566gM is an attractive device which performs its job excellently. I did not face any problems while using/testing this device.
Considering MIMO technology is still new and not yet standardized by many of the manufacturers, Asus, once again with this valiant effort, proved that it is one of the world leaders in wireless technology.



Rating

The WL-566gM gets a decent :

8/10

Special Thanks to ASUS-PK for providing the sample for reviewing.



For Comments/Suggestions regarding the review, please click HERE

-