Linksys silent over WPA interoperability flaws

David M Williams
Monday, 02 March 2009 17:37

Opinion and Analysis

Now, I may be a lardy lad full of cheese pizza and as much as I probably need to run continually between my house and garage and up and down the stairs turning things off and on and entering eight-digit codes, it’s all a bit counter-productive to any claims of a seamless technology lifestyle.

Even the Linksys WAG325N isn’t flawless. Periodically the wireless network would just die. The unit was still operating, my cabled units were fine, but I had to power it off and on again to get the wireless network back up – just like the WET54G.

Additionally, the WAG325N doesn’t let you reserve addresses in DHCP, and its menu option to view connected wireless devices doesn’t work. If you click this menu option nothing is listed ever.

You would think it reasonable to expect quality from Linksys, being affiliated with standards leader Cisco. You would also think it reasonable that Linksys products should work together. You would even consider it fair to assume if the products allege to support WPA that they in fact do so.

Not so. The products all suck. Linksys – who ought to be on the forefront of network tech – essentially forced me to diminish my network security to appease their crummy implementations. Thus, I issued my network with the SSID of “LINKSYSSUCK” proclaiming to all in my neighbourhood my view.

I wrote to Linksys via the address This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it advertised on their web site, on October 22nd. I received a response right away saying

“Thank you for contacting Linksys Technical Support.

Your question has been received. A member of our Product Support Team will respond within one business day.

We appreciate your patience.

Thank you for choosing Linksys.”

Nobody replied. I wrote again on November 5th. Apart from the system response promising a reply within one business day I’ve still heard nothing back, four months later.

So, I stopped using Linksys products. I scrapped the DMA2200 media centre extender altogether and set up a MythTV box upstairs. I scrapped the WAG325N and went with a D-Link DSL-G604T which has operated flawlessly (and which does have a DHCP that permits reservations.)

I also dumped the sleeping-when-it’s-not-crashing WET54G WiFi to Ethernet bridge, although I will concede I upgraded to another Linksys product, the WET200G. This is designed for the same purpose but has two major enhancements over the 54G. For one, it includes four Ethernet ports, not just one.

Secondly, and more importantly, it works. It handles WPA and it doesn’t drop off after periods of inactivity. There aren't any upgrades for the WAG325N or DMA2200 though. And it's a bit ridiculous for the solution to a flawed product to be "buy a better one."

That’s my story. This isn’t a review as such, but a genuine story of a genuine tech practitioner using ordinary consumer-grade products to solve a commonplace home networking situation.

Linksys totally tarnished my pre-conceived opinion of their products, as well as the sincerity of their word given the promise to “respond within one business day.”

My SSID is no longer called LINKSYSSUCK but I still think it.