Call to Router Manufacturers for Better EOL Disclosure

by Rian

WiFi is the basic necessity of 21st century. We fight over it, much like cowboys have fought over lands to grow their, well, cows. Wild West is an unusual metaphor for WiFi, but my reasoning is that home networking markets lack transparency and control on how much these home-grown radio wave generators are sold and maintained much in a sense how Wild West was. We are living in a world where having access to the internet is prerequisite for living in a modern society, yet the equipments themselves are often overlooked.

My story goes back around a decade. I had upgraded the router-AP network to home mesh network, as the technology had recently become affordable for average households. Prior to mesh routers, it was possible to setup a wider WiFi, where each wireless AP is simply broadcasting the identical SSID with passwords. It had its caveats, such as lack of handoff support and lack of centralized management. Mesh-enabled products were indeed more than welcome. With wired backhauls, even the consumer-grade mesh routers were reliable enough.

My Netgear Orbi router from 2016 or possibly 2017 has performed adequately. For some contexts, in mesh setups, there is a main router that is connected to the modem, and there are satellites that act as nodes to enlarge the coverage. I had the main unit fail on me once, but I believe it had a decent run. The problem was, as it started to age, I saw the wired devices spontaneously lose connections for brief moments and that caused some havocs on my network setup. I was ready to find out if there were fixes or updates to this issue, or if needed, upgrade the hardware to latest WiFi 7 or WiFi 6E. Then I found out about the unexpected —the router had hit EOL, “End of Life”.

No doubt tech-enthusiasts have seen EOL all over the news thanks to Windows 10 that is slowly being sunset. The idea behind sunsetting is that developers and manufacturers behind consumer electronics and applications are slowly stopping future maintenance due to its inherent aging system. WiFi routers are clearly no exception. When I purchased my Orbi, WiFi 5 was still called 802.11ac. However, unlike Microsoft and Windows 10, Orbi admin panel does not state its EOS (End of Service) status nor warn the users of its incoming EOS dates. The only way to find out about EOS is to go to the manufacturer’s EOS documentation page. What’s worse, Netgear hasn’t made it clear on its EOS schedules aside from stating minimum three years of legally-required support.

The outdated firmwares on routers, especially ones that have not received security patches, are simply more vulnerable as the network equipment is the last line of defense for many consumer-grade products and services. We’ve all heard and read about how aging router softwares have created a leeway for attackers before. Given the circumstances, it’s odder manufacturers weren’t more blunt and direct about the subject — that the company will no longer provide security updates, and one may still opt to use the old despite the risks. A simple warning message under the “check for update” button would have sufficed.

As a bit of tangent, the problem of keeping track of manufacturers’ update or upgrade performance isn’t unique to the router world. There is an annual report article from Computerworld, and frankly the issue seems to be identical to what router market is having. As I began researching on how each router manufacturer fares in terms of long-term support, I realized most reviews have zero to nil comment on the manufacturers’ history on the firmware support length. One could make an argument that expected lifespan of routers are only 3-4 years, based on how often IEEE releases a new WiFi standard; it is nonetheless not an excuse from communicating vital changes to their products.