Trying to maintain Wi-Fi coverage throughout a house (particularly a large house) or office can be a challenge. We’ve written about some of the options, such as the Amped Wireless SR300 Wi-Fi Range Extender, and the in-wall WiPNET system. These are good options, but each has its limitations, whether its the need for multiple units placed strategically around your home, or the requirement for professional installation with an in-wall system. What if you just want one unit with a powerful reach?
Amped Wireless, the company behind the extender mentioned above, has a new option. The R20000G is a high-power Wireless-N dual band router with an advertised coverage area of up to 10,000 square feet thanks to its 600mW of power. The router offers dual bands for different needs: 2.4GHz for highest range, and 5 GHz for the least interference. For applications where wireless isn’t a concern, the router also provides four gigabit Ethernet ports and a USB 2.0 port for connecting an NAS drive.
The Amped Wireless R20000G will be released May 21, for a price of $179.99 USD.
Forgot to mention, you can get more detail on the WPS problem from conversations and research Steve Gibson hosted at GRC.som – https://www.grc.com/search.htm?cx=000064552291181981813%3Ay8yi5go2xza&cof=FORID%3A11&q=wps&sa.x=0&sa.y=0
This sounds pretty nice as the features go, but the real question is whether the one-touch WPS security is handled any better than the rest of the lame router market. The specs I could find did not have enough detail to get a good answer, but it would be nice to know if Amped at least included a way to turn off WPS, since it represents such a huge hole in network security.
Could it be a coincidence that the people who tell you to secure your router so none of your neighbors use it, are the very same people who make tons of money selling your neighbors routers because they can’t use yours?
Do any of the folks who make themselves feel important by intoning ‘security’ all the time, actually have examples of where anybody has been able to break an encrypted signal (such as almost every web merchant has) and stolen anything by doing it?