Fixed Wireless Equipment

D-Link First to Market with Dual Band Router

The new AirPro DI-764 supports Internet sharing for both 802.11a and 802.11b users, as well as four Ethernet clients. The product has an integrated NAT firewall, as well as other security features, and will retail for $499.

by Eric Griffith Managing Editor of Wi-Fi Planet [July 16, 2002]

In the recent past, Irvine, CA-based D-Link broke through a price barrier with the DI-604, a router that sells for only $59 MSRP, potentially making Ethernet routers a commodity product like Ethernet NICs. The company hasn't quite done that with its new wireless router, but it is the first to integrate two different flavors of 802.11 in to home or small office router.

The D-Link AirPro DI-764 Dual Band Wireless Broadband Router combines 54 Mbps 802.11a and 11 Mbps 802.11b in the same unit, supporting both types of clients. It supports wireless "turbo modes" by using Texas Instruments' Packet Binary Convolutional Coding (PBCC) modulation—72 Mbps for 802.11a and 22 Mbps for 802.11b.

In addition, it includes a 4-port 10/100 Fast Ethernet switch for wired users.

For security the DI-764 uses an integrated NAT firewall and has full virtual private network (VPN) pass-thru support for multiple IPSec, L2TP and PPTP sessions. The router will block IP addresses, URLs, or domain names you preset, and features MAC address authentication with logging to prevent intrusions.

A Web browser-based interface is used for configuration and there is a setup wizard to create quick file and Internet sharing out of the box. Different configuration profiles can be saved to a hard drive as back up should the router be reset. Because it has a built in Web server (for the configuration), it also can support remote management.

Pricing and availability
The D-Link AirPro DI-764 High-Performance Dual Band Wireless Broadband Router will be available in August. It will retail for $499. A one year warranty and free tech support will be included.

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