Introduction
At a Glance | |
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Product | D-Link Xtreme N Duo Wireless Bridge / Access Point (DAP-1522) |
Summary | Dual-band draft 2.0 802.11n AP/Bridge based on Ralink silicon |
Pros | Dual-band 4 port gigabit switch w/ jumbo frame support Can be used as AP or bridge Lowest price for dual-band draft 11n |
Cons | Single radio, so no simultaneous dual-band. Sub-par 2.4 GHz band performance 40% WEP and WPA/TKIP throughput reduction Very low throughput with 802.11g clients |
D-Link seems to have caught dual-band draft 802.11n fans' interest with the announcement of the DAP-1522. It is the successor to D-Link's DAP-1555, which was one of the first draft 11n AP / bridges to hit the streets.
A key point of interest is that the DAP-1522 is currently the only dual-band draft 11n AP option that's street-priced under 100 bucks. The sweetener to the deal is that you also get a three port gigabit Ethernet switch that supports jumbo frames! (The 1522 has a four port switch, but you need one port to uplink it to an existing router or switch.)
The only other $100 draft 11n option for opening up access to the 5 GHz band is Netgear's WNHDE111 [reviewed]. But that product covers the 5 GHz band only and has only two 10/100 Ethernet ports.
Figures 1 and 2 show the controls, lights and ports on the front and rear panels of the 1522.
Figure 1: Front panel
I don't get the logic behind the separate "Bridge" and "AP" lights, since the product can be in only one mode at a time. It's kind of annoying that the lights have a constant one second blink rate. But what's more aggravating is that D-Link should have had the Bridge mode light indicate a successful link to an AP—particularly because it's not staightforward to log in and check.
Figure 2: Rear panel
Internal Details
Figure 3 shows the FCC ID photo of the 1522, which shows that D-Link has turned to Ralink to drive the cost down from its Atheros-based DAP-1555. The SoC processor (RT2880F) includes the draft 11n MAC / Baseband processing and a dual-band draft 802.11n 2T3R (2 transmit, 3 receive channels) transceiver (RT2850L) completes the radio.
Figure 3: DAP-1522 board
Although D-Link doesn't spec it, my tests showed that jumbo frame support is enabled for the Realtek RTL8366 four-port gigabit switch. I tested only 4K, but the Realtek's spec says that it supports 9K jumbo frames at wire speed.
More details, including a comparison to the DAP-1555, can be found in this article.