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Netgear announced their latest foray into the open source wireless router realm with the Netgear WNR3500L. Cisco based Linksys routers targeted at consumers have been flaunting the Linux OS for quite some time. However, Netgear has plans to become a favorite amongst the open source networking community.
The WNR3500L rocks the latest 802.11n support and is fully customizable with the latest open source firmware out there: DD-WRT, OpenWRT, and Tomato. Som Pal Choudhury, senior product line manager for advanced wireless, also mentioned their “Development Partner Program, with multiple software vendors and developers creating customized, robust, commercial-grade applications on the WNR3500L.”
In addition to the open source community, Netgear has collaborated with software application companies to deliver applications such as hotspot software by Sputnik, and remote access by Leaf Networks, among others, to run additionally on the Linux platform.
In terms of hardware, it sports a 480MHz MIPS 74K CPU, 8MB of flash memory, 64MB of RAM, 5 gigabit Ethernet ports, and USB ports for shared peripherals. Netgear will launch the router this Fall with a starting price of $139.99.
The price is a bit steep; do you think the flexibility of Linux and additional software, not to mention full 802.11n support is worth the price tag?
Links:
[1] http://www.maximumpc.com/user/jcbarry
[2] http://netgear.com/About/PressReleases/en-US/2009/20091005.aspx
[3] http://www.dd-wrt.com/site/
[4] http://openwrt.org/
[5] http://www.polarcloud.com/tomato
[6] http://www.sputnik.com/
[7] http://www.leafnetworks.net/
[8] http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/80211n_wifi_standard_officially_approved_ieee
[9] http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/custom_firmware_rocks_how_hack_gadgets_new_software
[10] http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/ultimate_router_guide_how_optimize_security_and_performance
[11] http://www.maximumpc.com/tags/80211n
[12] http://www.maximumpc.com/tags/hardware
[13] http://www.maximumpc.com/tags/netgear
[14] http://www.maximumpc.com/tags/networking
[15] http://www.maximumpc.com/tags/openwrt
[16] http://www.maximumpc.com/tags/router
[17] http://www.maximumpc.com/tags/tomato
[18] http://www.maximumpc.com/tags/wireless
[19] http://www.maximumpc.com/tags/wnr3500l
[20] http://www.maximumpc.com/articles/news
[21] http://www.maximumpc.com/user/login?&commentfragment=comments_top_anchor