The Wireless Edge: Linksys WRT54G Part Duex

Here's an update from my column last week about Linksys' popular WRT54G wireless router.

Since our story last week about Cisco/Linksys changing the WRT54G Wireless-GBroadband Router from a Linux-based system to a WxWorks-based system,Linksys contacted us to say it will maintain the Linux-based system under a newmodel number of WRT54GL. The company's statement was, "We are honoredby the overwhelming loyalty of Linux users to our products, and this dedicatedSKU is our way of saying thank you for the support this community has givento us and our products."

We are pleased that the Linux-based version (current equivalent to WRT54G v4)will remain available for those who desire it. However, we're still not happyabout the apparent quality and performance issues of the currently shippingWRT54G. Also, it's a little unusual to create a new SKU for an existing productand to use the old SKU for, effectively, a new version of the product. However,it does mean that Linksys/Cisco can direct its huge volumes of this product'ssales, estimated at hundreds of thousands per month, to the version thatcosts the company less to manufacture. Hopefully, Linksys/Cisco can quicklyaddress the problems with this version so that these hundreds of thousands ofusers don't have the unfortunate experience I had.