Testing & Results

Testing Methodology

To fully test RT-N16 and find its true potential it would have been ideally paired up with either a wireless N PCI card or USB network adapter from ASUS, Unfortunately this wasn't available and I had to make do with what I had, an Atheros AR5007 802.11b/g Wi-Fi adaptor build into my Compaq Presario CQ61-110SA laptop.

There are many different ways of testing your network and for this review I wanted to concentrate on the following things;

• How range and proximity might affect the speed of my wireless Internet connection
• Can the RT-N16 cover me with a strong wireless signal throughout my house
• Would I lose speed as a result of being at a distance from the router

To measure speed I have used the online speed test @ speedtest.net. I went to different locations within my home and ran the speed test 3 times, I averaged out the 3 results to give each location its score. I tested in six different rooms, three downstairs - Living room, Kitchen, Utility room and three upstairs - Bedroom's 1, 2 and 3. The living room test location is 2m away from the router, the kitchen and utility room test locations were both approximately 5 meters from the router. Bedroom 1 test location is approximately 4 meters away from the router (in a straight line) Bedroom 2 test location is directly above the router around 3m away and bedroom 3 test location is furthest away about 7m

Test System

• Laptop Model: Compaq Presario CQ61-110SA
• System Memory: 3Gb PC2-6400
• Processor: Pentium Dual Core T4200 @ 2.0Ghz
• Disk Drive: WD Scorpio Blue 160 GB SATA
• Wi-Fi adaptor: Integrated Atheros AR5007 802.11b/g
• Operating System: Windows Vista Basic

Results

There are a lot of aspects that can affect your wireless network such as signal reflection, Channel population, Channel pollution and the power to reach ratio - corporate Wi-Fi hotspots will have a much more powerful antenna providing a much stronger signal providing better range and speed. Lets now see how the RT-N16 Multi Functional Wireless N router performs.

I have a 20Mbps package with my ISP, I did a speed test on my PC through a wired connection for reference purposes to see how the wireless speed compares. Wired speed was on average 19.52 Mb/s throughout the duration of the test and on occasion that speed was also achieved through the wireless connection but unfortunately not consistently. Average results are shown below.

Throughout my home the ASUS RT-N16 Wireless Router provides a signal strength that was consistently excellent (5 bars on the Vista scale) and there was only one point during testing where I got a very good signal, The router didn't give me the same speed wireless as wired but it did come close on occasion. Testing was done with encryption set to WPA2 personal and with no encryption and speeds recorded were on average the same under both conditions.

There are also going to be times when you may want to access your wireless connection outside your home so I have taken the time to also see if the ASUS RT-N16 will provide enough coverage to use my laptop in the back garden. My outside test location is approximately 20m from the router, the signal strength was still very good (4 bars) and connection speeds were reported between 8.00Mb/s and 11.59Mb/s which is more than sufficient for my needs.

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