Cisco-Linksys WSB24 Wireless-B Signal Booster

To improve the performance of a two-way communications link, it doesn't help if you increase the range of the link in one direction without making any improvement in the other. The WSB24 attempts to effect this bidirectional improvement, but how it is achieved is of dubious value. If you have used this product and wondered why the results you get are so weird, here's why:If block diagrams are meaningful to you, have a look here: https://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/prod/oet/forms/blobs/retrieve.cgi?attachment_id=292345&native_or_pdf=pdf. You can see that what Linksys/Cisco has done here is to increase transmitter signal strength. This gives improved performance in the downstream (Internet to you) direction. L/C has also improved front-end noise figure by (I presume) careful engineering and eliminating the transmit/receive switch between the low-noise amplifier (LNA) and antenna. Whether L/C has achieved a noise figure reduction equivalent to the transmit power increase (10 dB, honest) is doubtful, but since I have never seen L/C publish a receiver NF spec, I don't know. So the upstream improvement (from you to Internet) is something, but probably not 10 dB. But the transmit portion of this thing does kick out the juice.Now the weird part. By simply summing the two diversity outputs of the wireless router driving this thing (this is the job of the Wilkinson Combiner, a Y-connector for radio waves), you are trashing any benefit you might have gotten from diversity. Since L/C is silent on what its diversity does and how much benefit it provides, we are left speculating in the closet. Have we truly lost anything? Was diversity really doing anything to begin with? Do two antennas simply look better than one? Would someone please turn on the light?Ditto on the receive end. With this booster in place, the receive signal presented at the diversity ports is (by definition) identical. That this doesn't disturb the functionality of the attached router one little bit is a testament that the diversity-selection circuitry can't be that elaborate: Asked to choose between apples and apples, it unhesitatingly chooses apples without giving a second thought to whatever happened to the oranges it was once offered. C'est la vie. I am conviced that people who go through life this way live happier lives.In summary, we have a 10-dB (10x) increase in transmitter power, which should be good for a 3X range increase. We have some improvement in receiver noise figure, which might bring 5 dB or so in that direction. So let's guess that we might pick up 2X or so in real range. But we're giving up diversity. What does this cost us?Are dual antennas and diversity the IT equivalent of the tailfins on the 1960 Cadillac, the winglets on the Lear 45? Only your hairdresser knows for sure.Here is some feedback from a high-performance installation I did using one of these things: 1) It works. It does increase range. 2) If you attach it to pair of high-gain antennas, it will work even better. 3) If you attach one of its ports to a single high-gain antenna, you will get very weird results. Because I did not know what was inside the thing when I first tried this, the results I got were quite confusing. I could not beleive that a strong, technically competent organization like L/C would really do what I now know it really did: trash diversity to save a nickel, or to pick up a dB or two in the receive chain. I shouldn't blame Cisco: this product was developed before it acquired Linksys, and the booster is no longer on the market. So why am I going to all this effort to review a product that is no longer on the market? Good question. You can still find these things on Amazon.Is it a Cadillac? Not quite. But neither is it an Edsel.

...there's a better way to handle the wireless range problem, and for less money. I have used my WSB24 for a few months, and probably have seen a 25% boost in thru-put at the far ends of the house (important as we're now running 3 thermostats, 2 TiVos, a variable number of laptops & the new 802.11b Linksys camera, all via wireless).Anyway, recently I added 2 more BEFW11S4 combination routers (wired and wireless) and instead of plugging my ethernet cable into local PCs, I've plugged them into the supplemental routers and then used one of the 4 ports on these for the local PC. The effect is that the local machine still gets the benefit of hard wired network access, while the wireless end of the routers supplies broader areas within the house with a full signal.I guess that's an obvious solution (though it took me a while to figure it out), but with the router price just a little more than half the price of a wireless access point/bridge (WET11) and less than the cost of this booster, this approach has solved all my issues handsomely. Access anywhere is just as robust as it is at the (still in use) WSB24.I am now in Networked Nirvana!

I used this to boost reception in a small wireless 802.11b network set up in a duplex (about 2200 sq feet total, 2 stories, wood-lathe-plaster construction).Initially I set up a Linksys BEFW11S4 Cable/DSL Wireless Router, and was getting only fair reception at the periphery, about 50 feet through walls from the BEFW11S4. The WSB24 installation took less than 60 seconds It sits on top of the router -- same footprint. The signal strength improved to good to excellent at the periphery. Eight computers, both Macs & PCs, have excellent internet connections through a single router and DSL interface.PRO: Small footprint, works as advertised, easy & fast to install.CON: Cost, another power brick, it probably won't boost reception through walls with high interference if you don't have some reception to start with (see Tip #2, below).Tip # 1, for router placement: Place the router as high as possible in your room or structure--it will significantly improve signal strength.Tip # 2, It's a two-way street: The wireless adapter in each computer acts as a transmitter back to the wireless router. Poor placement of the computer or antenna results in poor reception, even with a signal booster like the WSB24. Try repositioning the computer, or get a Wireless USB Adapter (like the Linksys WUSB11), which can be placed closer to the wireless router because of its USB cable. For poor reception on a laptop with an internal wireless card, replace it with a PC slot wireless card. The antenna extends out of the PC card slot for less interference. In my experience, the best is the Cisco Aironet 350, which has 100mW of transmit power (the average laptop card has 30mW) and a diversity antenna, which aligns to the router in any postion.

Of all the network equipment I've added to my home, this has been the easiest to install. You take your existing Wireless router, unscrew the antennas, connect them to the booster, and then connect the booster to the router where your antennae used to be.Before buying this I was having problems with signal strength. Sometimes I'd have dropouts despite there not being a great deal of interference or distance between my router and my machines.I have to give Linksys credit: this booster *did* improve the quality of my network signal. Just not by much. I tried other positions and moving the antenna, but there really wasn't anything to write home about in the upgrade.If this booster were about half as expensive as it's listed here (currently $81), I'd say it's almost worth the money. However, unless you're really having a lot of trouble with your network, you do a lot of file transfers from one machine to another, or you simply insist on tweaking things, you might want to pass on this product and consider waiting for a better wireless standard to upgrade to, like 802.11g.