Wireless Router and Wireless Card Recommendations

I’m often asked which wireless equipment I recommend for someone to purchase.

There are a number of brands of wireless routers and cards available in the consumer market. If you watch the ads from the big electronics stores, you will see ads for whichever brands are offering current specials. These may or may not be your best choices.

For a home wireless network, I recommend equipment from Linksys. For a wireless router, I have chosen the Cisco-Linksys E3000 High-Performance Wireless-N Router. For the computer end of the wireless network, with today’s hi-speed USB 2.0, I would not hesitate to use a USB wireless network adapter. I’ve paired that with a couple Cisco-Linksys High-Performance Wireless-N USB 2.0 Adapters. Actually, I bought two of the refurbished ones.

Obviously, if you’ve bought a recent notebook, one end of your network connection already has a wireless connection — it’s built-in. Still, you can use a USB-based wireless network adapter or a PC-card adapter, if you choose. Personally, I’d use the wireless adapter in my notebook, if it did 802.11g. If it only does 802.11b (the slower 11 Mbit/second transmission rate), I would purchase an adapter to get 802.11g 54 Mbit/second rates.

One last comment — go read my Wireless Security page. Lock down your wireless network — you will protect your computer, your network, your files and your connection.

Besides Amazon.com, another good source for networking gear is NewEgg.