Model:
WLA-G54C
Price: $199
Pros: Small,
supports bridging and repeater functions
Cons: Poor
range in repeater mode
As its name says, the Buffalo Technology’s AirStation
54Mbps Wireless Compact Repeater Bridge-g (WLA-G54C) is a petite multifunction
WLAN device that can act as an access point, repeater, or a wireless bridge.
Features
The WLA-G54C is housed in a much smaller package than Buffalos related router/AP.
In fact, its in the same small vertical chassis as the companys USB WLAN adapter,
so its compact enough to be unobtrusive almost anywhere. The unit includes
a flat base for desktop operation as well as a wall-mounting bracket. Like all
Buffalo products, the Broadcom-chipset WLA-654C uses an internal antenna system,
and an MC-type connector is provided for use with external antennas.
The configuration interface of the WLA-G54C is the same as that of Buffalos
other products, which is to say its not the most well-designed or intuitive
layout, but its easy enough to master once you become familiar with its idiosyncrasies.
(One example: features that arent available in the device, like packet filtering,
still are presented in the menus.)
Other strangeness: When I plugged the unit in for the first time, both of the
indicators (only twoEthernet and Wireless) were dark — the unit takes about
5-10 seconds to come online and illuminate its lights.
When in AP mode, the WLA-G54C offers a full compliment of wireless features,
including output power adjustable in 1mW increments (22 mW is the maximum),
and wireless privacy separation, to prevent WLAN clients from accessing each
other. In addition to WEP, both WPA (with either TKIP or AES encryption) and
RADIUS authentication are supported.
AP Performance
As an access point, the performance of the WLA-G54C was quite good, particularly
at shorter distances. Throughput was a robust 21.83 Mbps at 10 feet, and remained
relatively high through most of the distance range18.33 Mbps at 25 feet, 17.04
at 50 feet, 15.48 at 75 feet, 6.32 at 100 feet and 3.43 at 125 feet.
Mixed mode performance at 10 feet was 11.64 Mbps, while turning on WPA encryption
resulted in the typical penalty, reducing throughput at 10 feet from 21.83 to
15.25.
Repeater Performance
The WLA-G54C bridge and repeater functions operate using the standardized Wireless
Distribution System (WDS) specification. As a repeater, the range of the WLA-G54C
was somewhat of a disappointment, at least in the environments I tested the
product in.
I set up the WLA-G54C to extend the range of a Buffalo WBR-G54 router, and
positioned the unit at about the 125 foot mark, just shy of where the signal
was lost by a client machine. But while the client was able to maintain a solid
(albeit low-speed) connection to the router at that distance, the WLA-G54Cs
own connection to the router was intermittent at best. My client was able to
access the repeater from extended distances, but most of the time there was
no connection between the repeater and the router. When there was, the latency
rendered it essentially unusable.
Moving the repeater closer to the router (cutting the distance by roughly half)
shored up the signal strength between the two considerably, but that in turn
limited how far I could truly extend the network.
I tried a similar setup at home with a similar result; the WLA-G54C as repeater
could only get about 50 feet away from the router before communication between
the two would cease, even though a client could maintain a connection with the
router at a greater distance.
Admittedly, both locations (which include copious amounts of metal and masonry
block wall) are more challenging than a typical drywall environment. Still,
I would have expected to get more air between the devices, especially when the
purpose of a repeater is to extend range of the network as far as possible.
Bottom Line: External Antennas Needed
Buffalo attributed the reduced repeater range of the WLA-G54C to the overhead
needed by WDS, and suggested that external antennas would produce better results.
Thats almost certainly true, and it turns out that the WLA-G54C is in fact
a recent replacement for a prior generation product which lacked the external
antenna connection.
The fact that Buffalo redesigned the product to facilitate an external antenna
speaks to its importance, but the added cost of one or more external antennas
may make extending your network considerably more expensive than you planned.
For its part, Buffalo says it was selling such a high percentage of repeaters
with its routers, that the company now offers the WLA-G54C along with the WBR-G54
router in a pre-configured bundle.
My guess is that a fair number of people who attempt to extend their network
with the WLA-G54C will need to resort to external antennas. It performs well
enough as an access point, but low power output and internal antennas seem to
limit the devices usefulness as a repeater, at least in environments that are
anything less than RF-friendly.
