D-Link claims first for all-in-one network device

Stephen Withers
Thursday, 16 April 2009 08:20

Business IT - Technology

One possible concern is that the unit is relatively lightly specified. In particular, the wireless side is only 802.11b/g even though most notebooks come with 802.11n.

Also, the built-in Ethernet switch is only 10/100Mbps - Gigabit Ethernet is pretty well standard these days, except for low-end devices.

Naysayers will no doubt suggest that there's no benefit in having a LAN that's faster than the Internet connection.

That may be true if the only purpose is to share that connection, but things like NAS (networked storage) are becoming increasingly common in homes and small businesses. If you are using NAS, you really will notice the difference with Gigabit Ethernet.

And if you routinely stream video content to a wireless media player, you'll definitely benefit from a modern, dual-band 802.11n network. The newer standard generally delivers better performance at longer ranges, and users often report less interference on the 5GHz band (though you generally won't get as long a range with 5GHz as you do at 2.4GHz, everything else being equal).

To be fair to D-Link, it's not the only vendor of networking equipment for the home and small office market that's sticking with 10/100 and 802.11g for now.

If the DVA-G3670 sounds like it's right for your needs, the RRP is $A329.95.