As in the case of all wireless products, maximum performance for the RangeMax 240, 240Mbps, comes when a device is in close proximity to the router; performance degrades the farther a device gets from the router.

Nevertheless, the RangeMax 240 will easily outperform 100Mbps wired Ethernet speeds, according to Vivek Pathela, a senior director of product marketing at Netgear.

"In a 5,000-square-foot home, throughput will still be five times more than standard IEEE 802.11g," Pathela said.

The performance of IEEE 802.11g is rated at 54Mbps.

The RangeMax 240 uses a MIMO (Multimedia Input, Multimedia Output) chipset developed by Airgo Networks.