; 28 years ago 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 update 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 . contents 1 history 2 products 2.1 routers 2.2 modems 2.3 usb wireless 2.4 powerline network adapter 2.5 network attached storage 2.6 network media hub 2.7 voip 3 see also 4 references 5 external links history edit 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 edit routers edit main article linksys 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 802.11 b and 802.11 g wireless standards . wireless n draft 802.11 n 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 edit 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 802.11 g standard which offers transfer speeds of up to 54 mbit s. it is also backwards compatible with 802.11 b 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 edit wusb54g series of usb wireless adapters use the ralink rt2500 chipset . 13 they support the 802.11 b and 802.11 g 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 edit 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 edit main articles nslu2 and nas200 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 edit 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 edit 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 edit broadcom free software foundation inc. v. cisco systems inc. linksys iphone list of router firmware projects marvell technology group ralink references edit cisco acquires linksys for 500m clint boulton march 20 2003 ngo dong . belkin completes acquisition of linksys from cisco . cnet . cbs interactive inc. retrieved 8 october 2013 . press release page . belkin . retrieved 25 april 2016 . a b c entrepreneurs of the year . inc.com . january 2004 . retrieved 2009 03 10 . a b about us . linksys by cisco . retrieved 2009 03 10 . cisco to sell linksys to belkin will exit home networking market . ars technica . retrieved 25 april 2016 . cisco systems to acquire sipura technology . cisco system . april 26 2005 . retrieved 2009 03 08 . cisco small business ip phones linksys business series . cisco announces definitive agreement to acquire pure networks . cisco press release . 2008 07 23 . retrieved 2009 03 10 . belkin buys linksys home router business from cisco giving it 30 percent of the market . the verge . retrieved january 24 2013 . wireless g broadband router linksys official support simultaneous dual n band wireless router . linksys . retrieved 25 april 2016 . ralink chipsets based wireless devices . rapla.net . 8 jul 2007 . retrieved 2009 01 04 . marc abramowitz 2007 02 20 . setting up a linksys wusb54gc wlan adapter in ubuntu . retrieved 2009 01 04 . kramer2k 2006 05 22 . wusb54g working . insanelymac.com . retrieved 2009 01 04 . external links edit wikimedia commons has media related to linksys . official website retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title linksys & oldid 735015164 categories cisco systems acquisitionscompanies based in irvine californiacomputer companies established in 1988networking companies of the united statesamerican brandsvideotelephonyhidden categories use american english from august 2016all wikipedia articles written in american englishuse mdy dates from august 2016articles containing potentially dated statements from march 2007all articles containing potentially dated statementscommons category with page title same as on wikidata navigation menu personal tools not 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