Anyone familiar with the Wireless-G Broadband Router? (1 Viewer)

[Vlad D]

I'm about to buy a wireless router, and I saw at BestBuy that Linksys has a new router, the WRT54G, that has a speed of 54Mbps. Is anyone familiar with it? Is it really that much faster than their previous version?

 

[Patrick Larkin]

G = 54Mb/s
B = 10Mb/s

Both are shared bandwidth. G is not a standard -yet- but is completely backard compatible with B. So, if you had a 802.11b card, you can connect to a G base. If you have a G card, you can connect to a B base. AND, if you have a G card and a G base, you can transfer files at the full bandwsidth of 54Mbs. Its only useful for file transfers within your own network and will have no effect on internet access, unless you have a busy network of users all downloading files at once.

You must have an 802.11g card in order to utilize the speed.

 

[Vlad D]

Its only useful for file transfers within your own network and will have no effect on internet access

My network will only consist of my computer and my wife's laptop. I have a DSL modem and I also want her to access the net through the DSL modem. I'm considering buying the wireless G router and an 802.11g card for her laptop. But if I understand you correctly it won't make her access the internet any faster, only file transfers between computers. If that's the case, I'll save some money and get a wireless B router and card. What do you think?

 

[Patrick Larkin]

The internet connection isn't as fast as the 802.11b connection, let alone the g. (Your internet connection is probably below 1 MB/s) The only advantage (until there is much faster internet connectivity) is transferring files back and forth between your two computers. Since your desktop has a 100Mb/s ethernet card in it, your machine is capable of pushing the full bandwidth of the g router and your wife's machine is able to receive at the full rate.

 

[Michael*K]

Having used Apple's Airport Extreme setup which uses 802.11g, I'll agree that it's overkill for a regular broadband connection. Go with 802.11b if you just want to share an internet connection. Now set up two machines for file sharing and 802.11g flat out rocks!

 

[Vlad D]

Thanks guys. That's just what I wanted to here. I'll go with the 802.11b.