Wireless N?

[Azure]

Supposedly advertised to be up to 300mbps in speed, although in real life, I doubt anyone will reach those speeds.

The 'draft' version is available.....just wondering if anyone has tried one.

It wouldn't help much with increasing internet speed....but it could greatly improve your home network.

[Rathji]

I have a wireless N router at home and a N card in my Laptop. It really helps with the range. I didn't have any issues before, but since I had the N card (for 'a' band at school) I got the N router for home when mine died. I can be 5-6 houses down at the park and get a good wireless signal.

My router is the extended range model from Linksys though, which may be some of that range.

Edit: Forgot to mention that upgrading your router and or wireless card to N isn't really worth IMHO it unless you are already in the market for new equipment. To replace a working card or router with them doesn't make sense in my mind, especially considering the driver issues i experienced with my internal card.

[photon]

I got a new N router and it really helped with my wife's Macbook Pro connecting upstairs.

[Russic]

I use it to stream my music wirelessly throughout my house. I notice the music cuts out when I use the microwave ... not sure how that works.

[flamestalker]

Does it substantially improve gaming on consoles? Or is it not worth that extra money?

[photon]

I highly doubt it would have any impact at all on console gaming.

[Azure]

It shouldn't even have any impact on your internet connection, unless you have a faster connection than 50mbps.

But, its good for a home network, streaming video at home, and with range.

Just wondering if its worth it to upgrade now, or wait until the 'draft' versions are gone, and they sell the real deal.

[sclitheroe]

Its only a valuable upgrade if you routinely move large files around on your internal network (eg. backing up machines across the network, streaming movies to devices/computers, etc). It won't benefit your internet performance, because, as others have said, even 802.11g is as fast, or faster, than home broadband connections.

That said, if you went exclusively 802.11n, you could run your router and network gear in the 5ghz band, where it would have a lot less competition for wireless spectrum from your neighbors (assuming you have lots of neighbors with wifi; my hood seems just about saturated in them). The 5ghz spectrum is also the only way to get the full performance out of 802.11n, you aren't going to get 300 mbps at 2.4 ghz.

Another factor to keep in mind is that 802.11n is backwards compatible when operating in the 2.4ghz band, but will slow down somewhat when there are 802.11g machines transmitting data. If the 802.11g machines (eg. your PS3) are off most of the time, you still get really good performance from the n devices.

The new Apple Airport Extreme is an interesting 802.11n router, as it has both 2.4ghz and 5ghz radio in it, meaning your 802.11n devices can operate on a pure n network, and your 802.11g devices have their own as well (with a bridge between them built into the router, obviously). I'm sure linksys and their ilk either have, or will have, similar dual-band devices.

Overall, right now, I don't think there is a huge rush to upgrade for most users. I wouldn't buy anything new anymore that isn't n compatible however, as its getting much more mainstream and cost effective.

[JustAnotherGuy]

Is it really that difficult to spell the word network or does the letter N stand for something else?

[Azure]

Originally Posted by JustAnotherGuy

Is it really that difficult to spell the word network or does the letter N stand for something else?

802.11n

There are also a,b and g.

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by Azure

802.11n

There are also a,b and g.

e,f,j,h, and i too, I believe, but in practice you'd never see them.

[McG]

i have the linksys 610 router. it does dual simultaneous bands...so both 2.4 and 5 at the same time.

i wouldn't have bought a new router but my old b router was starting to give me some network addressing issues and it wasn't a gigabit router...so i got the linksys on sale.

i use both networks at the same time and it works great. would it work just as well in the 5 band only? maybe. but i got a great price on the 610 last fall and it does all that i need it to.

i think the highest speed that i have seen was about 150 mb/s on the network...considerably less from the internet connection.

[Barnes]

Originally Posted by sclitheroe

e,f,j,h, and i too, I believe, but in practice you'd never see them.

IEEE 802.11 - THE WLAN STANDARD was original 1 Mbit/s and 2 Mbit/s, 2.4 GHz RF and infrared [IR] standard (1997), all the others listed below are Amendments to this standard, except for Recommended Practices 802.11F and 802.11T.
IEEE 802.11a - 54 Mbit/s, 5 GHz standard (1999, shipping products in 2001)
IEEE 802.11b - Enhancements to 802.11 to support 5.5 and 11 Mbit/s (1999)
IEEE 802.11c - Bridge operation procedures; included in the IEEE 802.1D standard (2001)
IEEE 802.11d - International (country-to-country) roaming extensions (2001)
IEEE 802.11e - Enhancements: QoS, including packet bursting (2005)
IEEE 802.11F - Inter-Access Point Protocol (2003) Withdrawn February 2006
IEEE 802.11g - 54 Mbit/s, 2.4 GHz standard (backwards compatible with b) (2003)
IEEE 802.11h - Spectrum Managed 802.11a (5 GHz) for European compatibility (2004)
IEEE 802.11i - Enhanced security (2004)
IEEE 802.11j - Extensions for Japan (2004)
IEEE 802.11-2007 - A new release of the standard that includes amendments a, b, d, e, g, h, i & j. (July 2007)
IEEE 802.11k - Radio resource measurement enhancements (2008)
IEEE 802.11l - (reserved and will not be used)
IEEE 802.11m - Maintenance of the standard. Recent edits became 802.11-2007. (ongoing)
IEEE 802.11n - Higher throughput improvements using MIMO (multiple input, multiple output antennas) (November 2009)
IEEE 802.11o - (reserved and will not be used)
IEEE 802.11p - WAVE - Wireless Access for the Vehicular Environment (such as ambulances and passenger cars) (working - 2009?)
IEEE 802.11q - (reserved and will not be used, can be confused with 802.1Q VLAN tagging)
IEEE 802.11r - Fast roaming Working "Task Group r" - (2008)
IEEE 802.11s - Mesh Networking, Extended Service Set (ESS) (working - Jul 2010?)
IEEE 802.11T - Wireless Performance Prediction (WPP) - test methods and metrics Recommendation (2008)
IEEE 802.11u - Interworking with non-802 networks (for example, cellular) (proposal evaluation - Mar 2010?)
IEEE 802.11v - Wireless network management (early proposal stages - Sept 2010?)
IEEE 802.11w - Protected Management Frames (early proposal stages - 2009?)
IEEE 802.11x - (reserved and will not be used, can be confused with 802.1x Network Access Control)
IEEE 802.11y - 3650-3700 MHz Operation in the U.S. (2008)
IEEE 802.11z - Extensions to Direct Link Setup (DLS) (Aug 2007 - Dec 2011)
IEEE 802.11aa - Robust streaming of Audio Video Transport Streams (Mar 2008 - May 2011)
IEEE 802.11ac - Very High Throughput <6GHz (Sep 2008 - Dec 2012)
IEEE 802.11ad - Extremely High Throughput 60GHz (Dec 2008 - Dec 2012)

[Madman]

You just made those up.

[PsYcNeT]

Wireless N does more or less what is said above.

The BIG upgrade peopel should be looking at is 10/100/1000. Gigabit LAN is AMAZING. Moving files from PCs and the Network drive is unbelivably faster, and people streaming movies off my PC while I game is unnoticable.

[HotHotHeat]

I ordered a Apple Airport Extreme N using Visa points a couple of months ago, it's by far the most impressive router I've ever used. Have my printer and a USB harddrive hooked up to it and with all 3 Macs in our house using N, it's unbelievable for using Time Machine and transferring files. Doesn't slow down at all when I use my PS3 or Wii. I can pick up my network 3 doors down at my friends house...Basically I love the thing. Apparently the new firmware update that just came out lets me run a 'guest' network that is unsecured for friends to pick up the Wireless signal, but not let them into my secured network and have access to computer files.

[Azure]

I assume, no matter how fast they get the wireless platform, it'll never be faster than fiber?

Cat6a cable is supposed to be faster than 1000mbps....around the same speed that IEEE 802.11ad is supposed to be. IIRC.

How long until nobody bothers to wire anything anymore?

[PsYcNeT]

When WiMAX becomes a viable option within areas with poor line of sight.

Or when sattelite based internet becomes preferable, read: when sattelite internet has usable upload speeds.

Basically, it's dependant on transmittal capacity of the client, rather than the transmittal capacity of the server. If the laptop doesn't have the power to transmit at least .5 megabits/s wirelessly, anywhere, with no line of sight problems, then it's not viable.

[Barnes]

Originally Posted by Madman

You just made those up.

Nope. I carry around a cheat sheet in my wallet.

[photon]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

Or when sattelite based internet becomes preferable, read: when sattelite internet has usable upload speeds.

Satellite won't ever be more than a peripheral option because of the latency. Round trip to a satellite is 466ms, so almost half a second latency bare minimum, not taking into account anything else, so real latency can be almost a second in some cases.

Ok if you are surfing the web (though it would be HIGHLY annoying), pretty much useless for anything else.