Interview: NetGear focuses on reliability

Patrick Lo, chairman of networking tools vendor NetGear, explains how wireless systems and VoIP are likely to grow

IT Week: As chief executive of NetGear can you explain why you focus on supplying networking tools to smaller firms?

Patrick Lo: When we were established, there were more than enough players serving the enterprise sector, but practically no one was serving smaller businesses. Now that market has consolidated into a few big players. You have a price leader in D-Link and reliability with NetGear.

What are the strengths of NetGear's technology?

Whenever a networking technology is good enough for large corporates we will make it available for small businesses and homes. We were first to introduce secure firewalls for small businesses at under $200, as well as gigabit technology for them. Now we have shipped a 108Mbit/s wireless LAN [WLAN].

But is the same market not served by a number of other vendors?

In the small business sector you have 3Com, D-Link and NetGear. There are other suppliers, but they are very small. For homes, you have five or six vendors. If you talk about the big three, it's Linksys, D-Link and NetGear. For small firms it's important that the product works 24 hours a day, seven days a week, so reliability is the number one priority. After that it's performance and cost. We have the same performance and reliability as 3Com and Cisco, but at a significantly lower cost. We position ourselves as the reliable workhorse for smaller companies.

How is the market evolving?

We believe the next thing is to connect your phone to the network. We're doing this in the US with voice over IP (VoIP) service provider Vonage. We have a box that plugs into a broadband connection. Once a phone is plugged in you can make voice calls around the world. It can be taken anywhere and, as long as you have a broadband connection, your number follows you. I'm not sure when we'll bring this system to the UK. It depends on the service providers here. In Europe, they are sometimes also the telephone provider. BT would not want [to offer] this service.

What is holding back wireless networking?

The cost and speed factors are going away, and we are now seeing wireless security problems being solved. We provide WPA [Wi-Fi Protected Access protocol]-based security with our wireless products, as well as offering complete virtual private networks [VPNs], firewalls and technology to support authentication schemes. Security support will be standard in any networking device and then you have external, dedicated security like antivirus [tools].

NetGear was one of the first suppliers to release wireless products using so-called Super G technology. What are the pros and cons of using this technology?

Super G is based on the 802.11g protocol and is backwards compatible. The drawback is that it has fewer channels [than 802.11g], so you can't have as many access points in the same space. Throughput depends on conditions, but you can have 60Mbit/s to 70Mbit/s with line of sight. If you have walls in between the speed drops off.

What about 802.11n WLANs?

The IEEE standards group is putting together a working committee for 802.11n. We expect it to be ratified late next year, which will mean higher speeds, between 100Mbit/s and 200Mbit/s. We hope to have products out pretty quickly after that.

ABOUT PATRICK LO

Patrick Lo has been chairman and chief executive of networking tools vendor NetGear since March 2002.

He joined Bay Networks in 1995 having previously worked for HP, and helped establish the NetGear brand in early 1996.

Lo has a BSc degree in Electrical Engineering from Rhode Island's Brown University.

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