Speedbooster worth the extra money?

Your DSL or cable model connection is the bottleneck. Unless you are doing large file transfers within your apartment, you'll never see any speed increase. Range is another matter, but if that isn't an issue, go with the cheapest option...

PS - Buying a longer range until when you don't need it just increases the number of people you are potentially contending with for a limited number of frequencies.

To the OP:

If you're going to use VNC between your laptop and desktop, you might find better performance with the Speedbooster.

CB

Not unless all your clients also have the (proprietary) SpeedBooster option as well. I'd just stick with plain vanilla 802.11g until "Real-N" comes out an supplants all the "pre-N" stuff the vendors are trying to foist on us. [Yeah, some pre-N stuff can increase the range of even G clients, but I'm not convinced it's worthwhile.]

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com hath wroth:

Probably not. It's difficult to maintain a 108Mbit/sec connection past about 10-15ft. The best you can do through a wall or two is perhaps 54Mbits/sec. The extra speed is only useful for LAN side computer to computer communications as in file transfers and games.

However, the WRT54GS has twice the flash memory and twice the RAM as the WRT54G. (The exception is the WRT54GS v4 which has the same memory as the WRT54G). This doesn't buy you anything unless you want to install alternative firmware, such as:

I recommend). Check the feature list and see if there's anything you need or want. If you decide to get a WRT54G, do *NOT* buy the v5 hardware model as it's a bug pile and cannot be used with alternative firmware. It can be recongized by the serial number starting with CDFBxxxx.

Thanks so much for your help. My friend is a very low tech person. I don't know what "alternative firmware" would bring to her table. You say you recommend it. What are the advantages of alternative firmware vs the Linksys firmware?

Thanks again.

John

Thanks for the good advice. My friend is low tech, so keeping it simple probably works best. Think I'll get her the plain vanilla 802.11g as you suggest.

Thanks again.

Thanks for your help. Your comments make sense to me.

"dejola" hath wroth:

More features. See:

your friend is a basic wireless user, then many of the features added by alternative firmware will not be very useful. Some requires substantial expertise to utilize. Perhaps something more basic would be more useful. In any case, I suspect that unless she moves files around her LAN or is into running gaming parties, the higher speeds offered by Speedboost will not be very useful. Definately buy something with 802.11g, but stay away from the proprietary enhancements.

Not necessarily. If his wireless connection speed drops back moderately or significantly, then the wireless connection could be the bottleneck.

Mine certainly is.

David.