Wireless?

[Artreid]

I am seeing wireless routers that boast 450Mbps, (ie, Cisco Linksys AE3000
450Mbps Wireless-N Dual-Band USB Adapter 3 x 3 Antenna). Is this possible
and how?

I have gone from 54, 150 and now 300Mbps Comcast wireless routers and
according to windows wireless network status they all seem be running at
just 54Mbps.

I'm guessing I would need both a wireless transmitter and USB receiver that
run at 450MBps.

Can anyone suggest setup?

 

[Paul]

I am seeing wireless routers that boast 450Mbps, (ie, Cisco Linksys
AE3000 450Mbps Wireless-N Dual-Band USB Adapter 3 x 3 Antenna). Is this
possible and how?

I have gone from 54, 150 and now 300Mbps Comcast wireless routers and
according to windows wireless network status they all seem be running at
just 54Mbps.

I'm guessing I would need both a wireless transmitter and USB receiver
that run at 450MBps.

Can anyone suggest setup?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/802.11n

"IEEE 802.11n-2009 is a... wireless... standard... with a significant
increase in the maximum net data rate from 54 Mbit/s to 600 Mbit/s
(slightly higher gross bit rate including for example error-correction
codes, and slightly lower maximum throughput) with the use of
four spatial streams at a channel width of 40 MHz."

Regular Wifi is 20MHz channels. Wireless N has a double width channel option.
You can have more antennas than spatial streams, so the best antenna
can be selected.

"Number of antennas

The a x b : c notation helps identify what a given radio is capable of.

(a) is TX antenna, (b) is RX antenna, (c) is the number of data spatial streams

In addition, a fourth configuration, 3 x 3 : 3 is becoming common, which
has a higher throughput, due to the additional data stream."

802.11n works best, if no legacy Wifi devices are detected in the area.
Which for most people, is a pretty hard requirement to meet. The 40MHz
channel spacing may fall back to 20MHz spacing (less thruput), in order
to be backward compatible (not crush) the legacy devices.

*******

You can check actual reviews, to see how well they really work. This
one is a dual band device, with five antennas (three internal patch
antennas, two external antennas - the three internal antennas might
be for 5GHz).

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wire...trarange-dual-band-wireless-n-router-reviewed

There is also a router chart page. From the menu, select
the appropriate individual test, to get some idea how
well these things work. ~100Mbit/sec appears to be doing
well, for clients.

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/lanwan/router-charts/view

Paul

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

I am seeing wireless routers that boast 450Mbps, (ie, Cisco Linksys
AE3000 450Mbps Wireless-N Dual-Band USB Adapter 3 x 3 Antenna). Is this
possible and how?

I have gone from 54, 150 and now 300Mbps Comcast wireless routers and
according to windows wireless network status they all seem be running
at just 54Mbps.

I'm guessing I would need both a wireless transmitter and USB receiver
that run at 450MBps.

The network status does indeed show the capability of the equipment at
the computer. (Both ends are both transmitter _and_ receiver, by the
way.)

Can anyone suggest setup?

Are you using it to talk to other computers in your house, or to a
router connected to the outside world? If the latter, the local speed
won't make much difference, as I'd be surprised if (even though I don't
know where in the world you are) you're getting even 54 M from that.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

I am seeing wireless routers that boast 450Mbps, (ie, Cisco Linksys
AE3000 450Mbps Wireless-N Dual-Band USB Adapter 3 x 3 Antenna). Is this
possible and how?

I have gone from 54, 150 and now 300Mbps Comcast wireless routers and
according to windows wireless network status they all seem be running at
just 54Mbps.

54Mbps is also known as IEEE 802.11g or WiFi-G. Everything above that
speed is 802.11n or WiFi-N. In order to experience those faster speeds,
you not only need a WiFi-N router, but also your laptop must be WiFi-N
as well. If you're laptop is more than 3 years old, then chances are
that it's probably only WiFi-G compatible (the slower speed).

Beyond that, laptops are limited to WiFi-N 150Mbps, so you'd probably
need a special plugin card that'll take you upto 300 or 450Mbps.
Actually if you don't want to replace your laptop, then you can get that
same plugin card for your older WiFi-G laptop and have it working at
150/300/450 Mbps speeds.

I'm guessing I would need both a wireless transmitter and USB receiver
that run at 450MBps.

Yup, exactly.

Can anyone suggest setup?

Just go to your local computer store and buy a WiFi-N PC-Card and plug
it into your laptop.

Yousuf Khan

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

I am seeing wireless routers that boast 450Mbps, (ie, Cisco Linksys
AE3000 450Mbps Wireless-N Dual-Band USB Adapter 3 x 3 Antenna). Is this
possible and how?

I have gone from 54, 150 and now 300Mbps Comcast wireless routers and
according to windows wireless network status they all seem be running at
just 54Mbps.

54Mbps is also known as IEEE 802.11g or WiFi-G. Everything above that
speed is 802.11n or WiFi-N. In order to experience those faster speeds,
you not only need a WiFi-N router, but also your laptop must be WiFi-N
as well. If you're laptop is more than 3 years old, then chances are
that it's probably only WiFi-G compatible (the slower speed). []

Can anyone suggest setup?

Just go to your local computer store and buy a WiFi-N PC-Card and plug
it into your laptop.

Yousuf Khan

But, don't bother if you're wanting to up your internet connection
speed: it'll only boost speed to other computers on your internal
network. Your connection speed to the outside world - at least here in
the UK, I don't know for the US - is highly unlikely to even be anywhere
near 54M, let alone faster. In Windows XP, the network tab in Task
Manager will show the nominal speed capability (such as 54M) of your
hardware, and also give you a graph of what percentage of that
capability you're actually using; in my case it shows a LAN capability
of 100 Mbps Non Operational (as I have no cable plugged in), and a
Wireless one of 54 Mbps, which shows a graph which goes up to a heady
12.5% when I connect to http://www.mybroadbandspeed.co.uk/ and click
BEGIN (that site told me I'm getting 6134 kbps, which is about what I
usually get; there are lots of other such sites).

I'm sure Windows 7 will have something similar, that shows both your
hardware's potential speed and how much of it you are actually using;
use it to check, when connecting to a speed test site, and don't waste
money buying more hardware unless it'll make a difference, or unless you
move a lot of data between computers within your network. (If the
latter, cables are probably cheaper, unless the routing would be
impractical/inconvenient.)

 

[Yousuf Khan]

But, don't bother if you're wanting to up your internet connection
speed: it'll only boost speed to other computers on your internal
network. Your connection speed to the outside world - at least here in
the UK, I don't know for the US - is highly unlikely to even be anywhere
near 54M, let alone faster.

Yes, if all you use your computer for is Internet networking, then a
faster WIFI card won't help you one bit. However, if you're like me, and
you use your various computers for internal LAN streaming and sharing,
then it'll definitely help you here.

In Windows XP, the network tab in Task
Manager will show the nominal speed capability (such as 54M) of your
hardware, and also give you a graph of what percentage of that
capability you're actually using; in my case it shows a LAN capability
of 100 Mbps Non Operational (as I have no cable plugged in), and a
Wireless one of 54 Mbps, which shows a graph which goes up to a heady
12.5% when I connect to http://www.mybroadbandspeed.co.uk/ and click
BEGIN (that site told me I'm getting 6134 kbps, which is about what I
usually get; there are lots of other such sites).

You should see how low the numbers are when using a Gigabit Ethernet
connection to the Internet. You'll see speeds being reported of 4-5%
only.

However, even when connecting to machines inside your LAN, and having
equivalently matched network connections on both computers, you will
usually never see 100% or even close to 100% speeds. I've only ever seen
upto 60% efficiency between a couple of computers on the LAN.

I'm sure Windows 7 will have something similar, that shows both your
hardware's potential speed and how much of it you are actually using;
use it to check, when connecting to a speed test site, and don't waste
money buying more hardware unless it'll make a difference, or unless you
move a lot of data between computers within your network. (If the
latter, cables are probably cheaper, unless the routing would be
impractical/inconvenient.)

Actually when transferring *large* amounts of data between computers,
it's often faster to use old-fashioned Sneakernet, i.e. burning a CD or
DVD on one computer and copying it to a second computer. CD/DVD burning
is also still faster than using a USB thumb drive, BTW. Burning an 4GB
DVD will only take 2-3 minutes, while copying to an 4GB USB flash drive
will usually take 20+ minutes. For comparison a 4GB transfer over a
100Mbps Ethernet network will take about 10+ minutes.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Char Jackson]

You should see how low the numbers are when using a Gigabit Ethernet
connection to the Internet. You'll see speeds being reported of 4-5%
only.

However, even when connecting to machines inside your LAN, and having
equivalently matched network connections on both computers, you will
usually never see 100% or even close to 100% speeds. I've only ever seen
upto 60% efficiency between a couple of computers on the LAN.

That was also the case for me when I had a mixed (XP and 7) network.
Once everything was Win 7, my typical transfer speeds jumped from
200-400 Mbps (XP and 7) to 700-990 Mbps (7 only). If the network is
otherwise quiet, I can expect to get well over 900 Mbps and only see
the lower speeds (700 Mbps and sometimes even less) when other network
or disk activities are running in parallel.

Actually when transferring *large* amounts of data between computers,
it's often faster to use old-fashioned Sneakernet, i.e. burning a CD or
DVD on one computer and copying it to a second computer. CD/DVD burning
is also still faster than using a USB thumb drive, BTW. Burning an 4GB
DVD will only take 2-3 minutes, while copying to an 4GB USB flash drive
will usually take 20+ minutes. For comparison a 4GB transfer over a
100Mbps Ethernet network will take about 10+ minutes.

I typically transfer 4GB across the LAN in about 36 seconds. That puts
sneakernet into the dustbin where it belongs.