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Inside Story: Linksys WRT54G2 and WRT110 - The WRT110

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The WRT110

Linksys is also tweaking another member of its lower-end wireless products. The WRT100, which was introduced only last September, is also being moved to the new Stingray packaging and being renamed the WRT110.

Linksys WRT110 RangePlus Wireless Router

Figure 4: Linksys WRT110 RangePlus Wireless Router
Updated 7/11/2008: Corrected WRT110 parts info

But, once again, the internal design is essentially the same. Figure 5 shows the FCC photo of the 110's board. The design uses a Ralink 1T2R (1 Transmit, 2 Receive) "MIMO" design incorporating a RT2720L 1T2R Transceiver and RT2780. I couldn't find any information on the RT2780. But since there is no other CPU on the board, I'll assume it handles both general CPU and MAC / Baseband duties.

An ICplus IP175C provides the 4 port 10/100 LAN switch and WAN port. I got my hands on an actual WRT110 and found that it has 16 MB of RAM and 4 MB of flash.

Linksys WRT54GV82 board
Click to enlarge image

Figure 5: Linksys WRT110 board

Figure 6 shows the FCC photo for the WRT100 board, which is, again, too fuzzy to make out many component details. A close-up shot in the FCC docs, however, once again shows the RT2720L as the transceiver. And the rest of the components look to be the same.

Linksys WRT54GV82 board
Click to enlarge image

Figure 6: Linksys WRT100 board

As I noted in this article, the Ralink chipset is actually draft 802.11n compliant and only uses receive MIMO. Linksys isn't saying its RangePlus products are draft 11n compliant, however. But they are saying it uses "MIMO smart antenna technology".

I asked Linksys what the plans are for the WRT54G and WRT100 and found that they will be retired once current stock runs out. I also asked whether a similar spin will be done for the WRT54GS "SpeedBooster" router and was told that it will also be phased out and replaced with the "RangePlus" line, i.e. WRT100, WRT110 and its descendants.

Finally, since the WRT54G2, WRT100 and WRT110 don't (yet) support any third-party firmware, I asked about the fate of the WRT54GL. Fortunately, at least for the time being, the GL will "continue on".




Related Items:

New to the Charts: Linksys WRT54G2 Wireless-G Broadband Router
Linksys adds MIMO WLAN line
One if by STA, Two if by AP. A Draft 802.11n Certification Oddity
Linksys adds LELA Mac OS support
Cheap Draft 11n in Disguise: Linksys WRT110 RangePlus Wireless Router
Comscore