According information gathered by PCWorld, Netgear is alleging that ASUS has benefited substantially from unfair business practices. They’re specifically stating that ASUS knowingly released at least two routers into the market that had knowingly not passed FCC requirements to be sold in the US. The two routers that have been mentioned are the ASUS RT-N65U and the RT-AC66U, with the latter being ASUS’ 802.11ac flagship product. This router has gained numerous awards for it’s functionality and overall performance not to mention range. However, we have not have a chance to test this router from ASUS, but we do have Western Digital’s AC1300 and will shortly have Dlink’slatest 802.11ac gaming router.
Nevertheless, this lawsuit alleges that ASUS knowingly released these products in the US market without the necessary adherence to the FCC rules and regulations. In order to be able to sell a wireless product in the US, you must pass the FCC’s tests and meet their guidelines and rules. Netgear alleges that ASUS’ own products in-fact failed these tests and that ASUS had faked their qualifications for this router to get it to sell in the US.
While Netgear hasn’t provided concrete evidence of the actual reasons for ASUS’s non-conformance, they state that ASUS’ business practices amount to false advertising, unfair competition and conspiracy to defraud the consumer. Obviously, Netgear feels very strongly about ASUS supposedly unfairly doing these things with their routers, so they’ll naturally inflate their language since after all, ASUS is still a competitor. Perhaps not their biggest competitor, like Linksys/Belkin or Dlink, but ASUS is up-and-coming in a big way.
Needless to say, these are some pretty steep allegations put out by Netgear, and ASUS nor the FCC have responded to Netgear’s complaint yet, so it remains to be seen how valid they actually are. Hopefully we’ll find out soon enough, but in the mean time we’ll continue to review 802.11ac products and make sure you’re caught up with the latest in wireless tech. Hopefully this doesn’t result in a ban of ASUS’ wireless products, because the company also sells laptops, tablets and is hoping to break into the US smartphone market. It is a possibility, though, that the FCC could levy such a ban on ASUS for violating the law, or they could just give them a slap on the wrist as many companies get and simply get fined and move on. Either way, it will be interesting to hear and see the details of this case.
