G or N?

I'm about to upgrade my wireless network.

Wondering if I could - as a completely average user - tell the
difference between g (or so-called super-g) and draft-n? There's
certainly a significant difference in price for the newer standard.
Don't mind being cutting edge (and paying the money for it), but if
the difference is only noticeable to a tech head, I figure I might as
well be a step behind and save a few bucks.

Advice?

Thanks.

Mark

Firethorne <Firethorne@gmail.com> hath wroth:

>I'm about to upgrade my wireless network.

Oh-oh.

>Wondering if I could - as a completely average user - tell the
>difference between g (or so-called super-g) and draft-n?

Possibly. Draft-N offers better immunity to reflections, much better
speed, and a small increase in range, but not at the same time. These
are noticeable, but whether they are worth the extra money largely
depends on what you're doing with the wireless and your local RF
environment. For example, if you're a gamer, and have a series of
local machines on a LAN/WLAN running games, the added speed will
certainly be a worthwhile investment. Also, if you're trying to
distribute live video, the speed is also a big plus. However, you
won't get very far for range. However, if you're just surfing the
internet via a typical 1.5Mbit/sec DSL connection, the added speed is
totally wasted.

>There's
>certainly a significant difference in price for the newer standard.

The price will be even higher when the Draft-N stuff mutates into
something else and the non-commital manufacturers don't consider it
worth their effort to update legacy hardware. Translation: Draft-N
is not a great investment.

>Don't mind being cutting edge (and paying the money for it), but if
>the difference is only noticeable to a tech head, I figure I might as
>well be a step behind and save a few bucks.

Chuckle. I've been turning off the Draft-N, Turbot-G, Afterburner,
and other proprietary enhancements on most of my systems. I can sorta
tell whether these are on or off by the number of connects and
disconnects under marginal or interference conditions, but when
everything is working normally, there's little difference. What
happens is that most of my wireless use is under conditions where it's
impossible to maintain a 54Mbit/sec or faster connection. I usually
end up at about 12 or 24Mbits/sec. At that speed, none of the new
technology duz much good.

You can kinda get an idea of how it works by looking at the graphs of
performance versus distance on the various reviews found at:
<http://www.smallnetbuilder.com>
under the Wireless devices. This is a bit old:
<http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/24214/96/>
<http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/29979/9/ > (overview)
but will give you an idea of the implimentation problems you'll
blunder into with Draft-N which includes some advertising hype:
<http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/29945/97/>

>Advice?

802.11g only. Turbo-G or Afterburner only if your client radios
support it. MIMO only if you need the speed for gaming or video.

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