SmallNetBuilder

The WRT310N is Cisco's top-of-the-Linksys-line single-band draft 802.11n router. The Broadcom-based design includes a BCM4785 SoC with 32 MB of RAM and 4 MB of flash.

The 2.4 GHz radio uses a BCM4321 BB/MAC and BCM2055 2x2 dual-band radio, locked down to 2.4 GHz operation. The Gigabit Ethernet WAN port and four switched LAN ports are provided via a Broadcom BCM5397 5 port switch, which does not support jumbo frames.

The standard feature set found in other Linksys wireless routers are also supported in the WRT310N and include simple upstream priority-based QoS, access restrictions and dynamic DNS clients for TZO and DynDNS. The 310N, however, does not include a USB port to support sharing an attached USB drive.

WEP, WPA and WPA2 (both "Personal" and "Enterprise") wireless security is supported, as is Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS). Wireless throughput, however, is reduced to 802.11g speeds (~ 22 Mbps, best case) when either WEP or WPA/TKIP security is used. There is no significant speed reduction when WPA2/AES security is used.

Routing throughput measured 136.3 Mbps WAN to LAN and 156.2 Mbps LAN to WAN with the SPI function enabled. Maximum simultaneous sessions topped out at 160.

Best-case (Location A) maximum wireless throughput in the default 20 MHz bandwidth mode measured 69.7 Mbps running downlink and 59 Mbps uplink averaged over a 1 minute test. Switching to 40 MHz mode improved throughput to 77.1 and 83.8 Mbps for down and uplink, respectively.

A full review is coming soon. In the meantime use the Router and Wireless Charts to compare the WRT310N against other products.

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