I noticed you conveniently switched your test results update here to the Express, which is a completely different product from the Extreme G. The Extreme G gets 12.
Keep posting those standard G test results -- most will be closer to 1/3, some will be 1/4. You do realize that 20 Mbps is closer to 1/3 than 1/2 right?
I stand by that advice -- especially considering the cost of a PC Card these days.
Somewhere around 90% of all customers want general guidelines. In a Media Play today, I overheard a husband and wife asking a sales clerk how they can get multiplayer on their Xbox when it is down in the living room. I was going to jump in, but then the clerk gave a pretty good answer (wireless router, wireless game adapter from Microsoft). Did this couple or their bored teen care that much about detailed environmental specs? WPA or VPN? Not a hoot. They cared about getting Mechwarrior (the game they were holding) to run. Now, here's a question for you. If you were there, and they said what kind of access speed should they expect for the 54, 108, 125, or MIMO product on the shelf, as the clerk, what would you have said? And before you answer, I want you to imagine the look on the teenager's face, and think seriously about the other ten customers lingering nearby with puzzled looks, and the manager scowling off in the corner thinking terrible thoughts about the TPS reports he would be generating about you and the stale coffee he would be administering to himself.
Uh-huh.
And you are using this example -- you know, things like GPS logs -- as a sales pitch at a Lexus dealership? I think it's good you are not a writer or a salesman!
Yeah, and you'll get 12. And, also, Tom's didn't use a Mac for the test it seems.
Where does it say to always use the lowest number? 22Mbits/sec is
41% of 54mbits/sec. OK, I'll concede that it's not exactly half. I've gotten about 25Mbits/sec using IPerf at about 6 ft.
Yep. TomsNetworking didn't have an Extreme G benchmark. I figured it was close enough. I guess not. I'll confess that I don't know much about Apple products. The Airport at the neighboring office is the one that looks like a large while plastic mushroom with an aftermarket hang-on antenna. I guess that's an Extreme G.
Here's some benchmarks by Mac.com
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'm not sure why they find it necessary to tabulate RSSI and "number of bars" as some sort of benchmark. They really buried the performance test on page 9. Airport Extreme G Base Station - Apple Extreme G PC Card: 38 sec. = 1,129 KBps BAsante AeroLAN-XG 35 sec. = 1,258 KBps (10.3% faster) Apple Airport (.11B) PC Card : 82 sec. = 537 KBps (Note that this is KBytes not bits) So, the 1129KBytes/sec = 9Mbits/sec, which sucks. No clue what they were trying to do.
CNET review offers 16.8Mbits/sec in their review at:
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was getting 20-30Mbits/sec when I tested it using several laptops. However, I may have screwed up and will retest when I get to the office on Tues.
This is kinda weird.
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performance comparisons on the bottom of the page are from CNET, but I couldn't find the original text on the CNET web pile.
18.4Mbits/sec for the Airport Extreme-G only.
Well, with the Apple Airport Extreme G Base Station, you're apparently correct. Most of the other benchmarks appear to be running in the
22-28Mbits/sec range.
Yep. 20Mbits/sec is 37% which is fairly close to 33%. 22Mbits/sec (the higher number) is 41% which is about half way between 33% and
50%. Would it help if I amend my estimate to "up to 50% of the connection speed"?
I don't have the slightest idea what to tell them. I'm the worlds lousiest salesperson and would probably bury them in technobabble. If forced to supply an answer, I would probably cover my ass and give them a range of performance values that conveniently are proportional to price tag on the hardware. After all, the customers do have some vague idea that price and performance are proportional.
Now, plop yourself in my shoes. You just burned a good chunk of the marketing budget paying an overpriced lab to run performance and reliability tests on your unreleased product. The numbers come back looking like someone had thrown darts at a target, with no semblance of a bell curve. Of course, the lab claims they did everything correctly. What numbers do you give them for the advertising literature? Marketing wants to use the best numbers and ignore the rest. Engineering wants to cover their ass and use minimum values so that nobody comes back and demands that the field units perform to published specifications. Legal wants to use the tweaked FCC cert numbers. The ad agency is waiting. What do you tell them?
Actually, this is a rhetorical question because such debates are never this clear or obvious. At one company, engineering makes all such decisions. In another, it's marketing, legal, or maybe the autocratic president. It's the same as in your store example. The customers (and managers) all have their expectations and agendas and it's difficult to make them all happy simultaneously.
Actually, I do quite a bit of writing. None of it is for a general audience. Most of it is research and technical summaries. Some science fiction business plans and lots of market analysis reports. I try to keep my explanations simple and often succeed. It's difficult in usenet news to judge the abilities of someone posting a question. If I guess wrong, I may overwhelm a beginner or insult an expert. I get quite a bit of email asking for details so I think I can assume that the general usenet audience are not all looking for a fast fix.
You didn't really answer my question. So, I'll simplify it for you. Please select which one *YOU* would prefer to be told (not what you thing everyone else would prefer) for 802.11g performance.
12Mbits/sec
Up to 25Mbits/sec
40-50% of connection rate.
33% of connection rate.
20-25Mbits/sec up to 6ft under ideal conditions, TCP, using IPerf benchmark, on a 100baseTX-HDX connected computer to a XXXXX wireless router and a XXXXX mini-PCI wireless card in a P4-2.4GHz laptop. Obviously, I prefer #5.
Do you mean a Mac is slower than a PC for 802.11g benchmarks? The only Mac's I work on are from friends and accomplices, so I don't see too many of them. Frankly, I've never bothered to do a side by side wireless comparison with a comparable PC laptop.
Well, actually I'm stalling. The plumbing in the bathroom is clogged and I'm waiting for my chemical attack to finish.
Isn't it all about averages>? I mean, your ad agency would not want techogibberish, and even if they did, they do not have the magic ring decoders for it anway. But they want a number. So, I can get an Apple Extreme G down to 5 Mbps no problem, and I can get a generic Linksys or Netgear standard G up to 22. But under most conditions, where there might be interference, chicken wire in the walls, etc. you can say something like 12. But, of course, they never do use a number like that. They use 54 Mbps with a disclaimer that your rate will be lower (without saying how much lower).
I use number 4.
A lot of people don't reaize how much the processor and OS can affect throughput. The iBook runs at 700 MHz. On a PB G4, the Base Station Extreme G is blazingly fast, running at about 18 Mbps from ten feet. Same conditions, same router, same card, same everything, the iBook runs at
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