[Blizzake]

my friend is going wireless, but mostlikely her g3 is gonna use a .b card. my question is g has better signal streght, so if i get her a g router and she uses a b card. will the signal be better because g has a larger transmission area. or will it not make a difference.

[ghporter]

802.11g systems typically show a better signal quality indication, not necessarily a better signal strength. Further, when you connect a b device, the access point will shift to b-only, so the mechanism that gets the better quality through, g's different frequency hopping scheme, is out of play.

There's no problem in getting a g router, but you won't see any of the real benefits of g without using a g client.

[Blizzake]

ok got ya thanks

[tooki]

GHporter is wrong about the base station switching to B-only mode when a B device connects. It will switch continuously to allow all clients to connect at their maximum speed (theoretically). In practice, the overhead of switching can, under heavy load, cause the G clients' transmission speeds to be brought down to B levels, but they're still using G-style transmission. Under light loads, no clients will experience any slowdown.

tooki

[ghporter]

Originally posted by tooki:
GHporter is wrong about the base station switching to B-only mode when a B device connects. It will switch continuously to allow all clients to connect at their maximum speed (theoretically). In practice, the overhead of switching can, under heavy load, cause the G clients' transmission speeds to be brought down to B levels, but they're still using G-style transmission. Under light loads, no clients will experience any slowdown.

tooki

That's a new one to me. All the access points I've looked at have been pretty plain in that they had only one radio system, and could only do one or the other. How good is the AEBS at this switching technique? Do the clients see a hit in connectivity?

[sean_mecca]

The range and signal stregth of 802.11b and 802.11g are exactly the same. At the maximum distance with both you will get 1Mbps and as you get closer it will incrementally increase up to 11Mbps. Once you reach a distance where you recieve 11Mbps the speed changes only for 802.11g. With 802.11b moving closer results in no speed change while the 802.11g will again incrementally increase to 54Mbps.

The difference in range and signal strength will vary due to the power output of the base station (ie if you add an antenna to the airport you will get a better range).

I hope this helps.

[sean_mecca]

I also found a picture to illustrate what I talking about above.

http://img.cmpnet.com/commsdesign/cs...yren-fig11.gif

The only difference with 802.11b is that there are only yellow and red colors (ie the blue & green colors would be yellow).

[Blizzake]

well i ask becuase when i got my pb i was useing a seimens b router, and i upgraded to a buffalo g router, and the stregnth and range was greatly improved

[tooki]

Originally posted by GHPorter:
That's a new one to me. All the access points I've looked at have been pretty plain in that they had only one radio system, and could only do one or the other. How good is the AEBS at this switching technique? Do the clients see a hit in connectivity?

Unless an access point is set to forced-B-only or forced-G-only mode, it will automatically communicate using the correct protocol for the client (DSSS for 802.11b, orthogonal frequency-division [OFDM] for 802.11g). When packets need to be sent to both types of clients, the unit must switch modes, and there's some overhead for each switch, which can cause slowdowns for the G clients. If there are both clients connected, but very little B traffic, then you still can transmit at greater-than-B speeds.

I can't tell you about the AEBS, cuz I don't own one. With my D-Link DI-624 and my two PowerBooks (one B, one G), I get top speeds from both, simultaneously. (Disclaimer: I'm talking about Finder copies, and no scientific measurement of any kind, just my perception.)

tooki