Airlink101 AR360W3G router

phxphun1 · EVDO User Joined: 02 Sep 2005 Posts: 64

I found one of these @ Fry's Electronics today

Airlink101 AR360W3G router
http://www.airlink101.com/products/ar360w3g.html

I decided that for half the price of the next cheapest router, it was worth a gamble. I figure if it turns out to be a POS, I can always return it.

Does anyone else have any experience with this router?

After I've had a chance to play with it a bit, I'll report back with my experience and perhaps a review.

Something the 3GStore might consider selling in future?

xrayman · Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 9:50 am Post subject:

Good news: Cost is only $80. Bad news: It only supports two EVDO cards, the PC5740 Verizon and the PX-500 Sprint. Also it has no USB port. So no hope for future support for the USB EVDO cards.

Alex · Site Admin Joined: 19 Sep 2006 Posts: 1754

even worse. i bought one and called tech support asking how to get one of my devices that they don't support, supported. after about 3 calls over two weeks, an engineer suggested i SEND MY DEVICE to them in taiwan, so they could get it working.

really.

like my PC5750 would even work in taiwan.

we already struggle with one non-english-speaking router manufacturer (who shall remain nameless in this post)... we won't do that again.

xrayman · Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 11:16 am Post subject:

They must be a very small outfit, engineering did not have the budget to buy more than two EVDO cards to develop firmware with. The hardware must be a copy of another design, cheap knockoff product.

phxphun1 · EVDO User Joined: 02 Sep 2005 Posts: 64

Not encouraging feedback here so far. FWIW, I read elsewhere that although only a few cards are listed as supported, more than that actually work. I'll report back if my 620 works (I'm hoping so, since it supposedly supports a 720, and the only difference AFAIK is that the 720 has GPS and RevA, but the protocol for communicating with the card should be the same.

I have used some of their products in the past; conventional WiFi routers and USB WiFi dongles and had no problems with them, and ya can't beat the prices (routers for $20 or less and dongles for $10 or less when on sale).

Yes, I think their designs and router firmware might be knockoffs - I know their regular router's admin pages looked suspiciously familiar (though most brands tend to be similar).

I hope to try it out later today and I'll post again. Thanks for the imput so far.

phxphun1 · EVDO User Joined: 02 Sep 2005 Posts: 64

First impressions:

My S620 card works just fine with it. I used #777 for the "phone number" and left all other fields blank.

WiFi RF performance and range seems equivalent to the Linksys router it will be replacing (most distant user is about 200ft away - signal strength at that machine is equal to what it was with the Linksys).

Connection speed *seems* faster (???) on both computers than previous configuration. Previously, I had the EVDO card in a laptop, which then shared the internet connection to the ethernet port, which was connected to a Linksys WRT54G which was the access point for other computers. Now the computer that used to host the EVDO card is connecting via WiFi through the Airlink101 router.

I don't know why the speed should seem faster, even on the machine that used to have the card in it, other than the overhead of Windows' internet sharing was slowing things down some?

Anyhow, so far, so good. One complaint I have read that some folks have had with this router is that it locks up after a while. Time will tell. I've noticed that it appears to lock up if unused for a while, but that is just the EVDO going dormant. If I get an error trying to fetch a web page I just reload and it comes up fine.

Speaking of dormancy, etc... I left the default "Maximum idle time" of 300 seconds. Does that sound about right? Is that something I should leave alone, or might making it very large (or maybe zero or blank) make it never go dormant? Anyone have any experience playing with this setting (on this or any other EVDO router; I imagine they all have it).

Bobbler · EVDO Newbie Joined: 29 Jun 2007 Posts: 2

I have had the AR360W for about a month. It does have problems initializing my PX-500. On the status page, if errors start incrementing, then it is time to power cycle the unit.

According to Airlink's tech support, the unit needs to be turned off for 30 seconds, remove the card, power up the router and pop in the card.

I do get better performance over a laptop with ICS. I am looking forward to a new firmware to fix these initialization issue.

jschutzm · Posted: Sat Apr 19, 2008 5:49 pm Post subject: 4/19 Fry's $39.99

Fry's Electronics is selling the Airlink101 AR360W is on sale for $39.99this weekend
_________________
~John

geeke · EVDO Fledgling Joined: 19 Oct 2007 Posts: 11