Linksys

Linksys

Type	Subsidiary
Industry	Networking equipment
Founded	1988 (1988)
Founder	Victor Tsao Janie Tsao
Headquarters	Irvine, California, United States
Products	Hubs, Routers, DSL/Cable Gateways, Switches, Wireless Access Points, Storage and security IP cameras
Number of employees	700+ (as of March 2007)
Parent	Cisco Systems (2003–2013) Belkin (2013–present)
Website	www.linksys.com

A Linksys Wi-Fi router

Linksys is an American company selling data networking hardware products mainly to home users and small businesses. Its products include wired and wireless routers, Ethernet switches, VoIP equipment, wireless Internet video cameras, audio visual products and network storage systems.

Linksys was founded in 1988 by the couple Victor and Janie Tsao, both Taiwanese immigrants to the United States. They were purchased by Cisco in 2003, and sold to Belkin, the current owners, in 2013.^[1][2] Its products were branded as Linksys by Cisco when it was part of Cisco.

Belkin has kept the Linksys brand and released new products under its name since acquiring it.^[3]

Linksys products are sold to consumers off-the-shelf from consumer electronics stores, Internet retailers, and big-box retail stores such as supermarkets. Significant competitors in the home and small business networking market segment include D-Link, TP-Link and Netgear.

History

In 1988, the married couple Janie and Victor Tsao founded DEW International, later renamed Linksys, in the garage of their Irvine, California home. The founders were immigrants from Taiwan who held second jobs as consultants specializing in pairing American technology vendors with manufacturers in Taiwan.^[4] The company's first products were printer sharers that connected multiple PCs to printers. From this it expanded into Ethernet hubs, network cards, and cords. By 1994, it had grown to 55 employees with annual revenues of $6.5 million.^[4]

The company received a major boost in 1995, when Microsoft released Windows 95 with built-in networking functions that expanded the market for its products. Linksys established its first U.S. retail channels with Fry's Electronics (1995) and Best Buy (1996).^[5] In 1999, the company announced the first Fast Ethernet PCMCIA Card for notebook PCs. In 2000, it introduced the first 8-port router with SNMP and QoS, and in 2001 it shipped its millionth cable/DSL router.^[5] By 2003, when the company was acquired by Cisco, it had 305 employees and revenues of more than $500 million.^[4] That was also the sum paid by Cisco for the company.^[6]

Cisco expanded the company's product line, acquiring VoIP maker Sipura Technology in 2005^[7] and selling its products under Linksys Voice System or later Linksys Business Series brands.^[8] In July 2008, Cisco acquired Seattle-based Pure Networks, a vendor of home networking-management software. Pure Networks had previously provided the tools and software infrastructure used to create the Linksys Easy Link Advisor.^[9]

Cisco announced in January 2013 that it would sell its home networking division and Linksys to Belkin, giving Belkin 30% of the home router market. Belkin pledged to continue support and honor warranties for existing Linksys products.^[10]

Products

Routers

• BEFSR41 Ethernet router
• BEFSX41 Ethernet router
• WRT54G was notable for having firmware based on the Linux operating system. Since version 5, flash memory is reduced from 4 MB to 2 MB, and VxWorks was used instead of Linux. The original Linux model with 4 MB is now available as WRT54GL.
• WRT54G2 Router was an easy-to-set-up router that enables the user to use their Internet connection without running wires. It contains a firewall that protects the user from some unwanted hackers that may try to take access to the network.^[11] This router supports the 802.11b and 802.11g wireless standards.
• Wireless-N (draft 802.11n) series products.
  • WRT150N featured a 4-port 10/100 switch and claimed three times the range and nine times the speed over a standard wireless-G router.
  • WRT310N featured a 4-port 10/100/1000 switch and claimed four times the range and twelve times the speed over a standard wireless-G router.
  • WRT610N featured a 4-port 10/100/1000 switch, broadcasts simultaneous dual (2.4 and 5 GHz) wireless bands, multimedia streaming features, and a USB 2.0 storage link to accommodate an external hard drive.^[12]

Modems

Linksys ADSL modem AM300

Linksys ADSL modem AM300 backside showing Ethernet, USB, and phone line ports

WAG200G has a 211 MHz AR7 MIPS32 CPU with 4 MB of flash memory and 16MB of DRam on the PCB. The WAG200G measures 5.5×5.5×1.25 inches (14×14×3.2 cm) (W×H×D) and weighs .77 pounds (.35 kg). The WAG200G all-in-one device functions as a high speed ADSL2+ Modem, a Wireless G Access Point, router and 4-port Ethernet switch. The built-in wireless Access Point function complies with the specifications of the 802.11g standard, which offers transfer speeds of up to 54 Mbit/s. It is also backwards compatible with 802.11b devices at speeds of 11 Mbit/s. The Access Point can support the connection of up to 32 wireless devices. It also offers 4 built-in 10/100 8P8C ports to connect Ethernet-enabled computers, print servers and other devices

USB wireless

• WUSB54G series of USB wireless adapters use the Ralink RT2500 chipset.^[13] They support the 802.11b and 802.11g wireless network standards, and have Open Source drivers available for Linux.^[14] Drivers are also available for use on Macintosh systems. Only the Version 4 contains the Ralink chipset. Modification of the driver to work with Macintosh was discovered by Kramer2k.^[15]

Powerline network adapter

Linksys by Cisco Powerline Adapter Kit

Linksys offered a variety of HomePlug-based Ethernet-to-Power-line communication products:

• PLTE200 – Powerline Network Adapter
• PLTS200 – Powerline 4-Port Network Adapter
• PLTK300 – Powerline Network Kit
• PLE300 – Powerline AV Network Adapter
• PLS300 – Powerline AV 4-Port Network Adapter
• PLK300 – Powerline AV Network Kit

Network attached storage

The NSLU2 is a network attached storage device with 8 MB of flash memory, 32MB of SDRAM, a 100 Mbit/s Ethernet port, and two USB ports. The NSLU2 was discontinued in 2008. The NAS200 added SATA ports.

Network media hub

Linksys by Cisco Network Media Hub 400 Series

The Media Hub 300 and 400 series are network attached storage devices that allow users to share digital media across a network. Once the Media Hub is connected to the network, it searches for media content residing within the network and aggregates it into one centralized location, including all UPnP devices found. The Built-in Media Reader can directly import photos from compact Flash devices, SD cards and memory sticks without the need of a computer. Memory capacity options are 500GB or 1TB, with an extra empty bay.

The Media Hub's GUI gives a holistic view of the media located on the network regardless of where the actual file is located. Albums are consolidated, artwork, track numbers, and other metadata are downloaded, and all information can be sorted by a variety of different criteria. Automated backup software that helps preserve the data through continuous storage backup.

VoIP

• Linksys PAP2 (and PAP2T) is an analog telephony adapter (commonly referred to as ATA), which allows for the connection of one or two “normal” telephones to a VoIP provider using the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) protocol. The product is based on the SPA-2000 ATA, made by Sipura Technology, which was acquired by Cisco in 2005. The PAP2 was discontinued in 2012.

The SPA2102 is a gateway router with two FXS ports and SPA3102 is a gateway router with both a FXO and FXS port.

See also

• Broadcom
• Free Software Foundation, Inc. v. Cisco Systems, Inc.
• Linksys iPhone
• List of router firmware projects
• Marvell Technology Group
• Ralink

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Linksys.

• Official website