802.11g draft hardware reviewed: The bleeding edge

Thanks to the 802.11b News site, a couple of great links to what’s happening in the 802.11g world. I’m getting a new DSL cable dropped in for the home office, so I’m working out how to rearrange the existing networking gear. I decided to swap the older Linksys router onto the DSL line, and replace it with the latest and greatest Linksys 802-11g gear. It would be nice to be able to wait until the hardware was a little more stable (this gear is based on a draft standard which won’t be finalized until later this year), but unfortunately real-world timing issues make it a tough choice: go with standardized gear that’s commodity-priced but bound to drop in value, or risk the cutting edge (at almost no price increase!) but with an increased risk of incompatibility. I’m usually a later-than-early adopter, not a lagging-edger, but this time I’m jumping in, with fingers crossed.

Long, deep comparison of Linksys and Buffalo 802.11g gear: The results aren’t surprising, but they’re well documented with good methodology. Pure 802.11g equipment can top 20 Mbps, but once you add clients or mix in 802.11b or even other chipsets, you start seeing degradation that’s asymmetrical. The article is long, but worth examining closely! [via The Shifted Librarian][via 80211b News]

Powered by WordPress. Designed by Woo Themes

This work by Ted Roche is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.