NetGear today announced an open source Linux Wireless-N (802.11n) router, which will be supported by the “MyOpenRouter.com” community to enable developers to customize WiFi routers with their own splash pages and networking functions.
The NetGear RangeMax Wireless-N Gigabit Router with USB (WNR3500L) offers an 802.11n WiFi access point, with up to 300Mbps bandwidth, five gigabit Ethernet ports and USB storage access. It includes a high-performance Broadcom 480 MHz MIPS CPU, with 8 MB flash, 64 MB RAM, and a wireless repeater mode to extend range, 3 internal antennas, and a 12V, 1A power adapter.
An embedded hardware acceleration can run embedded free, open source Linux firmware for community and neighborhood WiFi networks. It also lets you share a USB drive (which you connect to the router directly) across your network or over the Internet.
Like NetGear’s WGR614L, an open source 802.11g router announced in June 2008, the RangeMax WNR3500L is supported by free, open source Linux firmware available at MyOpenRouter such as DD-WRT, OpenWRT, and Tomato, says NetGear.
Companies like Sputnik, use flashable Netgear and Linksys boxes to provide customized management functions and software as a service. The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, for example, installed free WiFi at virtually all their company-owned stores using SputnikNet to provide managed, access-controlled and venue-branded Wi-Fi hotspots.
Other open source WiFi router software includes B.A.T.M.A.N. (better approach to mobile ad-hoc networking), a routing protocol for multi-hop ad-hoc mesh networks, and ROBIN, an Open Source mesh network project that lets a single DSL connection spread throughout an apartment complex, neighborhood or school. It requires low-cost Atheros AP51-based routers such as: Open-Mesh mr3201a, Meraki Mini, La Fonera, Ubiquiti LS/NS and others.
The NETGEAR WNR3500L will be available in Fall 2009 with an MSRP of $139.99.
In other news, the D-Link DIR-65 wireless “N” router/media server/digital photo frame runs $300, but a 2.5″ hard drive can also be inserted to provide Network Storage. It also includes a BitTorrent downloader, an iTunes server, an FTP server, and even a UPnP streamer to video players. Two USB ports enabled with D-Link’s unique SharePort™ technology allow multiple users to wirelessly share USB devices such as multi-function printers (MFP), scanners and external hard drives from virtually anywhere in the home or office. It also features Gigabit ports for fast wire transfers.
It displays device status via graphical gauges and serves as a digital photo frame by showing digital photos, streamed video, weather forecasts and other live streaming Internet content. Frame content is easy to manage at internetphotoframe.com.
In another bit of Wi-Fi news, Devicescape has a new version of the Easy Wi-Fi hotspot finder, offering equipment makers instant hotspot access with no login. Devices with permanent WiFi access to hotspot networks are expected to be the prime market of this software. It will be available on 20 October, 2009.
