Product Reviews

Wireless networking is not as daunting as it sounds. A wireless network lets several PCs talk to each other with minimal fuss, and no annoying cables. In the past, the down side has been speed. The most popular standard to date, called 802.11b, claims to let PCs swap data at a top speed of 11 megabits a second (Mbit/s). In practice, the signal is degraded by interference and obstacles such as walls, so you'll be lucky to achieve half that. Wired networks offer ten times this speed. Fortunately a new standard, 802.11g, works five times faster, but is still compatible with older 802.11b equipment. Buffalo's WLA-G54C is one of the smallest 802.11g wireless access points around.

The WLA-G54C can be used in a number of ways. If you connect to broadband using an Ethernet modem, you can hook the access point up to it and share the connection wirelessly. Alternatively, if you plug the Buffalo into

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a wired network hub, you can link wireless equipment to your wired network. Finally, you can plug the WLA-G54C into a PC's standard Ethernet port - an easy way to make your PC wireless.

Once the access point is plugged in, the easiest way to set it up is to run the bundled 'Free Spot' software. The WLA-G54C doesn't automatically assign IP addresses (strings of numbers that identify an individual device on a network). This means you have to manually tell the access point what its own IP address is. You access this utility using your Web browser.

You can keep your network safe from prying eyes by using 'Wired Equivalent Protocol' (WEP) security. This encrypts data that passes wirelessly over the network. If you register your system with the WLA-G54C as an administrator, you can enter Advanced mode, which has lots of settings to increase security and performance. You can, for instance, restrict access to the network, so that only devices with specified MAC addresses (a permanent address unique to each network device) can gain entry.

To test the Buffalo's data transfer speeds, we plugged the device into a PC's Ethernet port, and copied 100MB of files wirelessly to a notebook equipped with one of Buffalo's 802.11g PC Card adapters. At close range, data travelled at an average of 19Mbit/s - fast for 802.11g, and much faster than any 802.11b device.

While it's tricky to set up, the WLA-G54C has lots of features and connection speed is top notch. Recommended.