So I finally took the splash and set up a home wireless network. I went to Best Buy, planning to check out the alleged "Black Friday" deals, and a new product caught my eye. Netgear had a 108mbps Wireless G router and pc card available! I didn't even know this technology existed, and I'm the type to keep up with current events and news in technology. Imagine my surprise! I decided to spring for the two products, despite the higher price (in comparison to regular wireless-g (54mbps) and wireless-b). So far, the software for the pc card reports that i'm connected at 108mbps at almost all spots in my apartment, something I thought would be virtually impossible. Even more shocking is that I can stream video seemlessly from my desktop pc over this new 108mbps wireless network. I'm stunned and HAPPY! Anyways, I was just wondering if anyone knew more about this technology (DoD, perhaps?) and if it will make 802.11b and 54mbps obsolete soon? Is it possible to even get 108mbps transmission rates over a wireless connecton? I'm just totally shocked right now.
Well I just bought a Belkin wireless b router for $10 at Circuit City. Hell no, I didn't need g! But CHECK THIS OUT!!! http://www.computers4sure.com/product.asp?productid=1700858&affid=874&adid=874
What you have is what's called the Turbo G chipset. It's made by some company whose name starts with an A that I forget. D-Link also came out with something similar not too long ago and yes, theoretically it should net you 108 MBps under ideal conditions. Most people I've read talking about it have had a mixed review of it. Some say the performance was worse than a standard G network, and others said the performance degraded as you went further away from the router (which is true for other 802.11 protocols, too). The biggest problem with these G routers are that they operate on the 2.4 GHz band which coincidentally is the same band that 2.4 GHz telephones operate on. Sometimes if you pick up the phone, you lose your connection. Even worse, your neighbor picks up a 2.4 GHz phone and.... *disconnected*. Other companies will start using the turbo G chipset probably, but like all the other protocols, it's "pie in the sky" speed. Very few people are going to maintain that speed, and of course if your connection to the Internet is 1.5 mbits or less (as most connections are), 108 mbits isn't going to do anything for you unless you're in the habit of doing massive file transfers inside your house. BTW, I don't think Netgear has put out a patch that allows non-Turbo G equipment to work in mixed mode. I could be wrong about that, but if not, what it means is that any networking equipment you use that isn't turbo g enabled won't be able to function on a turbo g network. You either have to run in b or "regular g" mode in order to use that equipment. Netgear was supposed to come out with a firmware upgrade or something for this.
The "standard" right now is 100 Mb, but it's really pretty well dependent on your network equipment. The other "standards" are 10 Mb (old) and 1Gb (newer).
"Normal" is 10 or 100 Mb. You can use Cat 5 on gigabit (1000 Mb) networks, too, but not all Cat 5 cabling has been tested to support it. Cat 5e cabling, on the other hand, has been tested to work on gigabit networks.
