Once I convinced them that I'd properly diagnosed the problem (quoting a packet loss rate went pretty far in this direction), they offered me three choices. I could ship them my router and wait for them to ship one back. Or, I could pay $16 and they'd ship me one right away and I'd toss the old one in the box and send it back. Or, I could pay $26 for them to do the same thing via overnight FedEx.

I opted for the $16 package and I'm making do with only two working ports for now. Luckily, 802.11n truly does have better range than my previous 802.11g box, so I can live with my secondary AP being off for a week.

Surge suppression: I've always kept the gear in my closet on a dedicated UPS, which proved particularly valuable when Hurricane Ike came through. Through the night, with the power down and us huddled in a hallway downstairs, I was checking the storm's progress from my iPhone. The UPS finally gave out mid-morning, but the storm was gone and life went on.

Regardless, the UPS does little to keep cheaply engineered consumer gear from wearing itself out. Somehow, I doubt these people hold themselves up to the engineering of something like the empeg.