SMC SMCWBR14-N 802.11n (Draft 1.0) Wireless Broadband Router

Introduction

SMC Networks is one of the latest of the major networking vendors to release wireless equipment based on the Draft 1.0 specification of 802.11n, beefing up their Barricade line of home wireless routers. The first product in the new Barricade N series is the SMCWBR14-N Wireless Broadband Router. Anyone following the developments in wireless networking would have noted the muted reception of Draft-N equipment due to their poor and inconsistent performance and coverage. Our own experience with Draft-N routers have been far from satisfactory, though we have tested a few decent performers such as the D-Link DIR-635, which incidentally is also based on the same chipset and shares more than a few similarities with the SMCWBR14-N. The SMCWBR14-N on its own is actually a simple 4-port xDSL broadband router in-line with SMC's past Barricade series; its full specifications are listed in the table below:

Hardware Features

SMC moves away from their more interesting and curvy designs in their Barricade G routers to a more classic low profile box unit. The SMCWBR14-N has a silver and blue theme with a row of status indicators out front and three external 4dbi antennas, two of which are fixed while the middle one is removable. On the back panel, you can see a power input connector, hardware reset button, one WAN port and four 10/100Mbps Auto-MDIX LAN ports. While there isn't a power button, there is a small switch next to the WAN port that can be used to enable or disable the wireless AP.

Simple as it is, it doesn't feature any other connections or expansion possibilities such as a USB hub for print servers or storage extensions, which some routers have come to embrace. It also doesn't feature any easy setup or configuration button like most routers to help less tech savvy users setup their hardware. However, we've found out that the SMCWBR14-N is actually very user friendly and has a very well detailed help system, but more on this later.

Manufactured in a plastic chassis, the SMCWBR14-N is slim and lightweight, but the silver paint job is very prone to scratching. Ventilation grills are located on both sides of the router and should offer sufficient heat dissipation, but from our experience, it does get uncomfortably warm after a day of testing. While most users tend to hide their routers away in an inconspicuous corner, you may want to ensure that more than the antennas have a little breathing room.

The SMCWBR14-N is based on the more popular Atheros XSPAN chipset, boasting wireless transmission speeds of up to 300Mbps and MIMO coverage. Besides its Atheros Draft-N wireless engine, the SMCWBR14-N incorporates an intelligent QoS solution based on the Ubicom StreamEngine media and communications processor. Set by default to automatically detect and optimize network traffic, StreamEngine is quite configurable too. Essentially, it performs packet filtering, dynamic fragmentation, prioritization and traffic shaping to ensure best possible conditions between latency sensitive data such as video streaming, VoIP or games and regular bandwidth subjective traffic. The router also features 802.11e WMM QoS for wireless media streaming.

Software and Administration

As we enter the web administration panel of the SMCWBR14-N, we realized how similar it is to the aforementioned D-Link DIR-635 router. The menu design and layout were instantly recognizable, if only in a different color scheme. Generally very user friendly and easy to navigate, we had no trouble at all getting the router installed and setup. If the lack of a one-touch setup button is disconcerting to you, there is actually an intuitive setup wizard within the web admin panel that you can use. Just a few steps will ensure that your network, WLAN and Broadband connections are up and running.

There is also a very comprehensive help section that not only explains every option there is on the router, even those in the advanced tab. The manual is also pretty fleshed out with a glossary of general networking terms. Very user friendly indeed. However, we did run into a tiny glitch with the admin panel. From time to time, the scripts don't seem to load properly, kicking the user back into the login screen. When this happens, the only thing you can do is close your current browser session and restart it. Doesn't affect the router performance, but it is quite annoying when the error pops up halfway through configuration.

Basic network and wireless configuration is very straightforward with wizards to get you through all three sections for Internet, Wireless and Network setup. By default, you can actually start using the router by leaving most of the Wireless and Network options to their automatic settings. The SMCWBR14-N supports WEP, WPA and WPA2 encryption models. However, users must remember that 802.11n does not have provision for WEP. Thus, if you do enable WEP, you will force the router to work in 802.11b/g mode. For best performance, it is recommended to enable WPA2-PSK encryption. For additional protection, MAC filtering is also available.

Advanced Administration

The goodies however, are all in the Advanced tab of the admin panel. Most of the router's many advanced security features and access policies can be configured here; SPI/NAT firewalls with UDP/TCP filtering, URL/website filtering, parental control, inbound traffic control, virtual server and DMZ setup are available. Advanced protocol access through Application Layer Gateways (ALG) can be used to control specific protocols like PPTP, IPSec, RTSP, H.323, SIP and MMS. One of the SMCWBR14-N's special features is an advanced options tab for games and applications that require special port routing rules.

Performance Testing

Interoperability is quite a large issue with early Draft-N equipment and in order to maximize network performance, we tested the SMC SMCWBR14-N with its own corresponding Draft-N adapter, SMC's EZ Connect N SMCWCB-N PCMCIA card. The router was set to auto detect the best channel to use, but we confined it to work in 802.11n mode only with B-protection turned off as well. Testing was done using NetIQ Chariot and QCheck tools for both TCP throughput and UDP streaming performance. Our tests were performed over four different distances of roughly 2m, 10m, 20m and 35m. Since the router's 300Mbps data rates are much higher than its Fast Ethernet ports, we linked a second PC into our network, effectively creating a 200Mbps downlink pipe to properly test its throughput performance.

The table below lists the average throughput of the router using a single and combined downlink. The SMC SMCWBR14-N proved to be a very strong mid-range router with great high-speed throughput under 20m. It is also one of the few Draft-N routers we've tested that was able to achieve better than LAN performance with a high-end throughput above 100Mbps. Transfer time for a 1GB zip from PC to client took three minutes at 2m and a little over four minutes at 10m. We did not test beyond 10m. UDP streaming performance was also excellent with little to no data loss below 35m.

Downlink throughput performance of the SMCWBR14-N was very consistent up to 20m, where it started to drop quite significantly, However, even at 20m, its average 40Mbps performance is higher than regular 802.11g. Only till we reach 35m, where the degradation is almost ten-fold from a peak of 104Mbps to 17Mbps, where it fares no differently from most 802.11b/g routers. Note that at 35m, we dropped down to use only a single link connection as the router could not sustain the combined link.

Uplink performance of the router was also stable with little dropouts. Throughput numbers were expected, though it did perform a little lower than the D-Link DIR-635 on average. The only weakness of the SMCWBR14-N seems to be its performance under encryption. Even with WPA2-PSK, the average downlink throughput was below 60MBps at 2m. Based on past experience with the Atheros XSPAN chipset, we had expected downlink throughput to reach the 80Mbps mark.

Conclusion

SMC might be a little later to market with their Draft-N wireless equipment than others, but the performance of the SMCWBR14-N shows a well developed and optimized router. However, realistically, Draft-N is still nowhere near achieving its advertised speeds and the SMCWBR14-N is no exception. On paper, the router is supposed to be able to reach 300Mbps, but our scores show otherwise. Even so, at close range the router was actually able to break the 100Mbps speed barrier to solidify the claims of 'faster than Ethernet' performance of most Draft-N equipment. A full 1GB file took only three minutes to copy over through a wireless downlink, making wireless HD streaming a possible reality. This is a good step forward as it truly surpasses the older 802.11g standard, but with MIMO, 802.11g is still giving a fight.

As simple as the SMCWBR14-N is, we didn't have any issue with the router. Setup was a breeze; its administration panel very intuitive, user friendly and comprehensive. On a simple network, you will only need to configure your broadband connection, leave the rest to the router itself and you're good to go. In this, SMC has done a fine job. The minor script loading issue we encountered with its web administration panel can get annoying, but as we've mentioned before, does not affect router functionality or performance at all. The only complaint we really have with the SMCWBR14-N is its Fast Ethernet ports. Considering its wireless speed advantage, you'd have thought that SMC would include Gigabit LAN support. It is as if they acknowledge that the router will not be able to realize its 300Mbps claim, so Fast Ethernet will still be sufficient.

802.11n is really starting to move along now and the IEEE has just very recently voted on Draft 2.0 of the standard. This is a very big step for the standard as it means getting ever closer to ratification. However, what does all this mean for the consumer? Will it render early equipment like the SMCWBR14-N obsolete? Vendors will definitely be looking to get compatible with Draft 2.0 and we've heard Atheros is sampling a new, more powerful version of their XSPAN chipset (that is still based on Draft 1.0). Many vendors have made a preemptive move by promising of product upgrades or even one-to-one swaps of early Draft-N equipment to the final 802.11n standard when it is released. Last we heard, SMC has not offered such a deal, though we've heard that all Atheros XSPAN chipset based products can be upgraded by firmware to be fully 802.11n compliant when it is released.

For consumers, this is an inevitable risk when considering early 802.11n draft equipment as standards are still in a state of flux. Compatibility and interoperability the main concerns, but throwing caution to the wind, if you still want to jump on the bandwagon to experience the next generation of wireless performance, the SMCWBR14-N is one of the few that we would recommend. At US$129 (~S$200), the SMCWBR14-N router is justly priced for its features and performance. The SMCWCB-N PCMCIA adapter has an SRP of US$98 (S$150) and its corresponding PCI adapter (SMCWPCI-N) goes for US$108 (S$165).

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