You will notice a difference in speed if you are transferring files across your network. You won't notice any difference in your Internet connection (unless you have an extremely fast connection -- T1 or some such).
I have a new 54 Mbit router, but an old 11 Mbit-wireless card in my notebook. Do I notice the difference in speed, when I buy a 54 Mbit-card or not? kj
Probably not. It depends on what you're doing and how far you want to connect. 54Mbits/sec will work up to about 15ft away from the access point. You'll get about 25Mbits/sec in thruput. That's a big plus when copying files between computahs. However, it doesn't buy you much for internet access as your thruput is limited by the speed of the DSL or cable modem connection.
As you go farther and farther away, the access point will automagically slow down the connect speed in an attempt to deal with increasing errors. YOu can always trade range for speed. At 300ft, you'll probably be going only about 1-2Mbits/sec.
What you may notice is an improvement in reliability (staying connected and reduced errors and timeouts) with 802.11g. OFDM modulation is much more reliable than 802.11b CCK, especially in multipath and reflection infested environments. It also seems to recover somewhat better from interference than 802.11b. 802.11g hardware is also later than 802.11b and therefore has the benifits of more advanced chips and designs.
I set traps out for those pesky multipaths and reflections that are infesting my place.
Ed
We have two busy computers sharing 2Mb/s DSL connection via 11b. In July the DSL speed will go up to 4Mb/s and I am thinking (as the wifi connection is simplex
- one way at the time) it would be worth upgrading to 54g. Am I right ? Regards, Martin
Your word "simplex" made me wonder about a few similar things. If 2 wireless computers, sharing a broadband connections, are both downloading a large file at the same time... how is the bandwidth split up? Does each computer get little slices of bandwidth time? Can a router / switch buffer any of that data?
Probably split 50/50. Clever routers can shape traffic, though thats generally a pricey option.
Nope. A proxy server could though.
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