It's great to see that Cisco is reviving the failing Linksys brand however I've lost so much faith in it (I've routinely bought the SMB products) and they haven't lasted much longer than the typical SOHO stuff. I've migrated over to "real" Cisco (881) and a separate D-Link SMB AP (DWL-3200AP) and have been very happy. Frankly I never touch these devices and they work flawlessly, never needing a reboot. I'm not sure if it's because I got lucky or just spent an obnoxious amount of money for a home network, either way my time is worth something. The Linksys brand is dead to me.
Oh and on another note, why would a home user care about IPv6? The ISP's won't be handing those out for anytime in the foreseeable future.
Drastic changes at Cisco’s Linksys division have re-established my confidence that the company can again produce high-quality and reliable consumer networking products.
When I last spoke of Cisco’s Linksys division, back in November of last year, I was not a happy camper.
To summarize, I had purchased their top-of-the-line consumer router at the time, the E3000. After 30 days of use connected to my 100Mbps Optimum Online Ultra broadband, the router stopped working.
Specifically, I experienced a condition where all of the switch ports, including the WAN port on the device would lock up after a few hours of use. Effectively, this knocked me off the Internet.
In my research into the issue, I had discovered that a large number of users including my tech blogger peers were experiencing similar problems with current vintage Cisco Linksys “Pancake/UFO” shaped routers including the WRT-610N, E3000, E2000 and E1000. From the information that I had gathered, many users were complaining that the routers were getting extremely hot and having various reliability issues.
Reliability aside, I had begun to think that the lights were on at Cisco Linksys but nobody was home. It was as if Linksys, the once king of consumer networking products had been swallowed up into the bowels of its parent company, never to be heard from again, and were now producing sub-par equipment.
Their two Twitter accounts had been abandoned, and inquiries into their regular tech support channels seemed futile at best.
My E3000 effectively became a paperweight. I swore off the product and told others to look for other brands, such as NETGEAR, noting my horrible experience.
Shortly after my scathing article appeared on ZDNet, I was contacted by Cisco Linksys’ head of Global PR. To make a long story short, she was extremely helpful in getting me and another tech journalist experiencing similar issues, Rafael Rivera, hooked up with the engineering team in Taiwan.
After a long series of back and forth emails, the engineers were still unable to duplicate the problems we were experiencing. We couldn’t completely establish from our end if the issues were being caused by a device that was sending bad packets or if it was an actual overheat issue on a certain batch of units, as the engineers in Asia were able to keep their router running for 12 hours under full load at 104 degrees F.
Still, at least Linksys was now being proactive, and signs of life were clearly returning to the company. I have since learned that as of late last year, there has been a change of management pretty much across the board in key positions, and new folks were brought in to right the ship, so to speak.
They even got back on the Twitter train again, with @OfficialLinksys as well as an active FaceBook page where the company is responding quickly to even the most irate customers seeking assistance.
More importantly, however, we found out in our discussions with the company that Cisco Linksys was going to re-vamp the entire consumer router line, from entry level to high-end. Now known simply as the “E-Series”, the new routers are sleek, very well engineered, are packed with competitive features, and most importantly work reliably even under heavy loads.
The first of the “new” E-Series to be introduced and the most high-end product in the lineup, the E4200, has been operating flawlessly in my home office since Mid-January. This new router, along with the E3200, represents the state-of-the art in consumer broadband routers today.
Also Read: Cisco rolls out new family of Linksys E-Series Routers; Starts at $59.95
Also Read: Cisco introduces new top-of-the-line Linksys Wi-Fi Router
If you are an Optimum Online Ultra or Verizon FiOS customer with 50Mbps+ broadband connections, these two routers should be considered on the top of your list. Both of these feature a Gigabit Ethernet WAN port as well as four (4) Gigabit Ethernet ports on the integrated switch, as well as dual-band 2.4Ghz/5Ghz Wireless-N using dual Broadcom 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi transceivers.
The E4200 has integrated media sharing with support for USB hard drives, with a 3×3 transmit/receive MIMO antenna array, with a maximum wireless throughput of up to 450Mbps across your Gigabit Ethernet LAN.
The E3200 lacks the media sharing of its higher-end sibling and has one less MIMO transmit antenna (2×3) yielding up to 300Mbps transfer speeds across your home Gigabit Ethernet LAN, but otherwise has very similar performance characteristics for wired broadband connections. Both routers can also take USB hard disks to act as basic file servers.
Wireline speeds with Gigabit Ethernet connected PCs on the E4200 are extremely impressive — with my Linux desktop and my Mac Mini using Chrome 12.0.712.0 developer and Safari 5.04, I was able to achieve download peak data transfer rates of 95Mbps to 100Mbps and upload peak data transfer rates of over 14Mbps, which is well within the maximum advertised capability of my broadband connection.
In my wireless tests with the E4200, I have found it to produce very strong signal in both the 2.4 and 5Ghz frequency ranges, with full penetration (5 bars) all the way through my basement to my upstairs bedroom while using an Intel Ultimate N Wifi Link 5300 wireless chipset with a 3×3 antenna array on a Lenovo x200 laptop.
Performance throughput on the Wireless-N laptop via Optimum Online on Speedtest.net varied between 75 and 80 Mbps downlink and 10 and 14Mbps uplink, which was very close to maximum wireline speeds.
On handheld devices and media players with less powerful transmitters and less antennas, such as on my two Android smartphones (Motorola Droid 1 and HTC EVO 4G) and on my iPad 2, speed suffered but performance was respectable.
On the Android phones using Wireless-G, I was able to achieve download speeds of approximately 7Mbps and upload speeds of 1.5Mbps using 1×1 antennas. On the iPad 2, using iOS 4.3.1, which has an integrated Wireless-N/G dual 2.4 and 5Ghz chipset but has only a 1×1 MIMO antenna, it fared a bit better, approximately 25-30Mbps in burst modes with 12-14Mbps uploads.
I should also add that when it comes to heat dissipation and ventilation, the E4200 is vastly improved over previous Linksys designs. The device certainly gets a little warm when under heavy stress over long periods, but definitely not hot.
While the E4200 does not currently support IPv6 in its integrated firmware, an update will be released in June of 2011 to provide that functionality, so those of you who are concerned about the transition need not worry about whether or not your device will be compatible. The remainder of the E-Series line is slated to get the IPv6 update firmware by Fall.
Overall given the exceptional performance of this router I’m going to say that Cisco Linksys is now doing a very good job at engineering and well on their way to getting back to the top of the consumer networking products heap.
So is there room for improvement at Cisco Linksys? Absolutely.
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