11g vs 11b - difference in browsing/downloading speed on Internet?

Here is the situation. A colleague has a laptop where he is able to
swap the mini-pci wireless card from an 11b to an 11g through the
laptop's panel. When using his laptop in a WiFi hot spot with 54mbs
connectivity, he thinks he is browsing and downloading faster on the
Internet when the 11g card is installed. The 11g card generally
connects at 54mps and the 11b card connects at 11mbs, although the 11b
card has approximately twice the signal level as the 11g card. I
think he is more influenced by the network traffic connection speed
displayed in the system tray rather than by any actual performance
difference. Who is right?

TerryP <ydl767@gmail.com> hath wroth:

>Here is the situation. A colleague has a laptop where he is able to
>swap the mini-pci wireless card from an 11b to an 11g through the
>laptop's panel. When using his laptop in a WiFi hot spot with 54mbs
>connectivity, he thinks he is browsing and downloading faster on the
>Internet when the 11g card is installed. The 11g card generally
>connects at 54mps and the 11b card connects at 11mbs, although the 11b
>card has approximately twice the signal level as the 11g card. I
>think he is more influenced by the network traffic connection speed
>displayed in the system tray rather than by any actual performance
>difference. Who is right?

Neither. It's more complicated than that. The speed of the hotspot
is limited by their backhaul to the ISP. For DSL, that's
1.5-6.0Mbits/sec. For cable modem, it can go up to 18Mbits/sec in
bursts and might average 6Mbits/sec. If connected to a corporate
backbone through a fiber connection, it could be astronomical. At
that point, the limit might be the performance of the wireless access
point (which are fairly dismal), and certainly the speed of the
wireless. Without a clue as to what's behind your hot spotz router, I
can't even begin to speculate as to the ultimate performance.

See:
<http://wireless.wikia.com/wiki/Wi-Fi...ance_and_Speed >
for maximum speeds.

Typically, an 11mbit/sec 802.11b association will max out at about
5.0Mbits/sec. An 802.11g associations at 54Mbits/sec will do up to
perhaps 25Mbits/sec. Therefore, assuming the router can handle the
traffic, if the backhaul is 5Mbits/sec or less, the two cards will be
equal. If the backhaul is more than 5Mbits/sec, the 802.11g card will
be faster.

So much for theory. Now, do some benchmarking. Find a suitable
internet speed test and see what it yields. Try to get a test site
that is as close to your ISP as possible or you will get erronious
results.
<http://www.dslreports.com/stest?java=1>
<http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest?more=1>
<http://nitro.ucsc.edu> (see site list near bottom of page)

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

TerryP wrote:
> The 11g card generally
> connects at 54mps and the 11b card connects at 11mbs, although the 11b
> card has approximately twice the signal level as the 11g card. I
> think he is more influenced by the network traffic connection speed
> displayed in the system tray rather than by any actual performance
> difference. Who is right?

Jeff explains the whole picture, but since you said it was a WiFi hotspot,
it most likely has a 1.5 Mbps DSL connection (although it might be a 1.5
Mbps T1 line) - subtracting the WiFi overheard, you will most likely see
half that when you run a speed test on the internet, i.e. www.dslreports.com

Even if it was a 5 or 6 Mbps DSL connection, you'll see a speed test result
of about 2.5 or 6 Mbps. At any rate, your b or g card will be faster than
any hotspot location.

So in that sense, you are correct and he is incorrect if he's looking at
his system tray speed.

DTC <no_spam@move_along_folks.foob> hath wroth:

>Jeff explains the whole picture, but since you said it was a WiFi hotspot,
>it most likely has a 1.5 Mbps DSL connection (although it might be a 1.5
>Mbps T1 line) - subtracting the WiFi overheard, you will most likely see
>half that when you run a speed test on the internet, i.e. www.dslreports.com

Most of the local hot spots are running 3Mbit/sec DSL because of the
high peak usage. It's only $10/month more to go from 1.5Mbits/sec to
3.0Mbit/sec.

I have a 1500/384 Kbit/sec DSL line at home. Running the speed test
from my ISP, I get 1300/323 Kbits/sec TCP speed. That's over an
802.11g wireless connection over a distance of ummmm.... about 3 ft.
If you're getting half the raw DSL rate, something is broken.

Incidentally, it might be your router. See the table of WAN->LAN
performance results at:
<http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/component/option,com_chart/Itemid,189/chart,119/>
Some of the routers near the bottom are real losers on thruput. The
list didn't include and ancient Netgear RT311 which I would guess
couldn't even do 1Mbit/sec.

>Even if it was a 5 or 6 Mbps DSL connection, you'll see a speed test result
>of about 2.5 or 6 Mbps.

Also not true. Note the various speed results for the local DSL
provider (sbcglobal.net) at:
<http://www.dslreports.com/archive?zip=&dnsdom=sbcglobal.net&start=Search>
You can see the peaks at the 3 service levels of 1500, 3000, and 6000
Kbits/sec. These seem to get 1200, 2400, and 4800 Kbits/sec
respectively. While not quite equal to the raw (advertised) speed,
it's certainly not half.

>At any rate, your b or g card will be faster than
>any hotspot location.

Don't say "any". I know of one corporate hotspot that gets most of an
OC3 (155Mbits/sec) after business hours. No, I'm not telling where.
I've gotten 25Mbits/sec download speed at times.

>So in that sense, you are correct and he is incorrect if he's looking at
>his system tray speed.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

Jeff Liebermann wrote:
> DTC <no_spam@move_along_folks.foob> hath wroth:
>> Even if it was a 5 or 6 Mbps DSL connection, you'll see a speed test result
>> of about 2.5 or 6 Mbps.
>
> Also not true. Note the various speed results for the local DSL
> provider (sbcglobal.net) at:
> <http://www.dslreports.com/archive?zip=&dnsdom=sbcglobal.net&start=Search>
> You can see the peaks at the 3 service levels of 1500, 3000, and 6000
> Kbits/sec. These seem to get 1200, 2400, and 4800 Kbits/sec
> respectively. While not quite equal to the raw (advertised) speed,
> it's certainly not half.

True, if you have a wired connection to the DSL. But I was taking in
account worst case to a wireless end point.

My 5Mbps DSL lines come in just above the advertised rate at 5.1 Mbps or so.

B is fine speed-wise for *typical* internet. I would never bother to
get out the screwdriver for that reason, not to mention buy a new
card.

Bigger reason to go G is that few of the B (older) devices can do WPA
security. The Gs (newer) can. Also, they will connect on a network
that is set to G-only and the B card will be out of luck.

If those are not issues, then fine. Personally, I have a Belkin G
pcmcia and an Orinoco Gold "B". My Orinoco WILL do WPA, so, being a
generally better device, I use it and keep the Belkin as a spare. In
my case, I choose the B card.

As far as signal strength goes, as I learned from Jeff, if you locked
the G card to a lower speed (12) , you will get similar signal
strength to the B card.

Steve