Wireless Reviews

Introduction

At a Glance
Product	Linksys Wireless-G Broadband Router (WRT54G2)
Summary	Repackage of the biggest-selling consumer 802.11b/g wireless router.
Pros	• >70 Mbps routing speed • Uplink QoS • Internal antennas don't reduce performance
Cons	• Routing throughput falloff with >~20 Mbps Internet connection • 10/100 switch

I have pretty much covered most of what you need to know about Linksys' replacement for its top-selling WRT54G wireless router, the WRT54G2 in the slideshow, product preview and inside story. But for those of you who need an "official" review, here it is.

Hardware Differences

I covered the design details of the G2 in this Inside Story article, but, to recap, the design is based around the Broadcom BCM5354 802.11b/g Router System-on-Chip with BroadRange Technology, 8 MB of RAM and 2 MB of flash.

The circuit design is essentially the same as the most recent WRT54G boards (the WRT54GV8 and WRT54GV82). The key difference in the G2 is that it uses dual internal, fixed position, non-upgradeable antennas sourced from Galtronics vs. the external, movable, upgradeable antennas found on the WRT54G. Figure 1 shows a board photo from the FCC ID docs.

Figure 1: WRT54G2 main board

Linksys sent along a WPC54G V3.1 notebook card to test with the G2. The card uses a Broadcom BCM4318 AirForce One Single-Chip 802.11g Transceiver with one of the two circuit board antenna lines running through a SiGe SE2528L 2.4 GHz power amplifier.

Figure 2: WPC54G V3.1 board