Agere was the first company to develop a residential wireless gateway, and it deserves credit not only for establishing this market but also for pushing prices down to an affordable level. Several of the other products we tested included Agere Orinoco wireless NICs, and Agere is unquestionably a leading player in this market, but it appears that rivals have capitalized on some the RG-1000's weaknesses.



The RG-1000 is the only product we tested that has a single Ethernet interface, its biggest shortcoming. This means that while you can connect the device to a broadband connection, you can't attach Ethernet devices on your internal network. All client devices behind the gateway must be equipped with wireless capabilities. We suspect that most SOHO users would prefer the flexibility of supporting Ethernet-attached devices in a mixed network.

On the other hand, the RG-1000 is one of only a few products to support gateway access over a dial-up connection. We've found this to be a useful feature for providing ad hoc networking at business meetings where a broadband connection is not available. Pass out a few wireless NICs and everyone can share the connection rather than having to wait in line.

When it comes to software, Agere has always done things a little differently from the mainstream, and that's also the case with the RG-1000. While all the other products we reviewed include embedded Web servers for configuration and management, Agere uses a Java application.

In earlier versions of the product, this Java application was designed for the RG line and offered limited configuration options, but in this latest release Agere offers the same management utility used with its enterprise-oriented access points. This is a mixed blessing. On the positive side, the utility is nicely designed and gives you much more control of the configuration. On the negative side, it is inconsistent with Agere's stated desire to make its wireless offerings as simple as possible. At the risk of offending some tech-savvy senior citizens, Agere sometimes uses the term grannyware to indicate that its systems are so easy, your grandma can get them to work.

We've come to expect good range and performance from Agere's Orinoco products, and we weren't disappointed with the RG-1000's performance, which was near the top of the list. We were rather surprised by our initial range testing, which placed the device near the bottom. After discussing our initial results with a tech-support engineer, we were advised to disable the "microwave oven robustness" option, a feature designed to allow the product to better tolerate interference from microwave ovens, which tend to leak signals in the 2.4-GHz band. Doing so helped a little, but when the scores were tallied, the product still finished in the middle of the pack.

We expect Agere to deliver an upgraded RG platform soon, perhaps by the end of the year, thus possibly reasserting its leadership position in this market.

Agere Orinoco Residential Gateway RG-1000, $295. Available: Now. Agere Systems, (703) 205-0600; fax (703) 205-0610. www.orinocowireless.com