[israces]

First, let me set this up: We have airport extreme equipped powerbooks that we are using with a Linksys BEFW11S4(?) 802.11b router and are having no problems at all. We recently added a NAS to the mix, and are noticing that the speed of the wireless network is a little slow for moving data to and from the NAS. (It is a wired 10/100 connection from the NAS to the wireless router, but that's a different story). Signal strength is fine, and we are aware of the decrease in speed associated with lower signal strength.

My plan right now is to upgrade the router to a plain old 802.11g router to speed things up. My understanding is that this is the fastest connecton we will be able to get with our airport extreme cards, (up to 54Mbps, technically). My questions are kind of related to each other and are:

1. How much of a real-world speed increase will we get from switching from 802.11b to another version of 802.11 (a, g, n, whatever else there is)?

2. Which router and which technology should we get (MIMO, SRX, pre-n, rangemax, speed doubler, blah blah blah, etc.), or would these even make any difference with our Macs?

3. Is one brand better than another as far as working with Macs?

I'd like to just go grab something at BestBuy and plug it in and be done with it, I just need a little advice on which one to grab. Thanks for the help!!

[chefpastry]

1. I don't have any numbers, but I can tell you that 802.11g will be MUCH faster than 802.11b for what you intend to do.

2. Apple's AirPort Extreme only complies to the standard 802.11g standard. Getting a router with any other technology will not benefit you.

3. Everyone seems to have different opinions regarding this. Personally, I use a Linksys router but hated it until I installed third party firmware on it. Now, I love it.

[israces]

2. I see a wireless network as a highway. The speed limit on that road with b is 11 and the speed limit with g is 54. My powerbook is a car equipped with an engine (airport extreme card) that can go 54. But, with a plain old g router, the actual speed that any one car can go is reduced due to traffic congestion if there are multiple cars (wireless connections) on the road.

Going along with this analogy, would having a router that is mimo compatable help if we had multiple powerbooks hitting the router at the same time? I guess I'm asking, would having a router that could handle more simultaneous wireless connections (more lanes on the road) help us achieve a "faster" connection (even though were still moving at only 54, we are all moving at 54 at the same time)? Or am I completely misunderstanding this whole thing?

3. I am partial to linksys as well. Which firmware are you using and why do you like it better? What does it allow you to do that the standard firmware from linksys does not?

Originally Posted by chefpastry

1. I don't have any numbers, but I can tell you that 802.11g will be MUCH faster than 802.11b for what you intend to do.

2. Apple's AirPort Extreme only complies to the standard 802.11g standard. Getting a router with any other technology will not benefit you.

3. Everyone seems to have different opinions regarding this. Personally, I use a Linksys router but hated it until I installed third party firmware on it. Now, I love it.

[tooki]

You are, in fact, completely misunderstanding MIMO. It is NOT using extra transmission channels. It's simply using multiple antennas to receive the same transmission multiple times. Fancy math then makes that improve signal reception.

None of the beyond-G technologies can help a Mac, and in fact, since they are non-standard, they often have compatibility problems, despite the manufacturers' claims to the contrary. (When I had a D-Link 108Mbps router, I had to manually completely disable the turbo mode in order to maintain a connection.)

I also have a Linksys router (the venerable WRT54G), and it's worked pretty well.

I haven't used the third-party firmware yet, but they just have a ton of extra features, most of which are irrelevant to the average home user. But some of the useful ones include massively increasing transmission power. Note that if you want to use a third-party firmware, you might want to go for the WRT54GS (the speed boost version). It has more RAM and a faster processor than the regular WRT54G, which means you can use more-powerful firmwares. (And you can still disable the speed boost mode if it causes problems.)

tooki

[mduell]

Originally Posted by israces

First, let me set this up: We have airport extreme equipped powerbooks that we are using with a Linksys BEFW11S4(?) 802.11b router and are having no problems at all. We recently added a NAS to the mix, and are noticing that the speed of the wireless network is a little slow for moving data to and from the NAS. (It is a wired 10/100 connection from the NAS to the wireless router, but that's a different story). Signal strength is fine, and we are aware of the decrease in speed associated with lower signal strength.

My plan right now is to upgrade the router to a plain old 802.11g router to speed things up. My understanding is that this is the fastest connecton we will be able to get with our airport extreme cards, (up to 54Mbps, technically). My questions are kind of related to each other and are:

1. How much of a real-world speed increase will we get from switching from 802.11b to another version of 802.11 (a, g, n, whatever else there is)?

2. Which router and which technology should we get (MIMO, SRX, pre-n, rangemax, speed doubler, blah blah blah, etc.), or would these even make any difference with our Macs?

3. Is one brand better than another as far as working with Macs?

I'd like to just go grab something at BestBuy and plug it in and be done with it, I just need a little advice on which one to grab. Thanks for the help!!

1. a means having a dongle hanging out of your PC Card slot; not very attractive IMO. The n standard still hasn't been finalized; some manufacturers are producing pre-release hardware anyway, but this also means a dongle. Since all of your PowerBooks are g capable, a g access point would be the obvious upgrade path.

2. Your Airport Extreme card/driver doesn't support any of the wifi enhancement methods; stick witih straight g. I used Super G with Static Turbo with a D-Link card and access point for a while; the speed was nice, but when I got a new laptop the convenience of built-in wifi instead of having a PC Card sticking out outweighed the speed advantage.

3. In theory, no, since they all support the same standard. In practice, stick with a major brand (D-Link, Linksys, Netgear) and you should be fine.

[tooki]

No, avoid D-Link. There are increasing reports of their routers crashing the second a Tiger-running Mac tries to communicate.

I had a Netgear, too. It failed twice, at which point i scrapped it.

The I got the D-Link, but then it died, and then the replacement started crashing constantly.

The Linksys has worked well for me, once I upgraded it to the latest firmware. (I haven't tried the third-party firmware yet.)

tooki

[chefpastry]

Originally Posted by israces

2. I see a wireless network as a highway. The speed limit on that road with b is 11 and the speed limit with g is 54. My powerbook is a car equipped with an engine (airport extreme card) that can go 54. But, with a plain old g router, the actual speed that any one car can go is reduced due to traffic congestion if there are multiple cars (wireless connections) on the road.

Going along with this analogy, would having a router that is mimo compatable help if we had multiple powerbooks hitting the router at the same time? I guess I'm asking, would having a router that could handle more simultaneous wireless connections (more lanes on the road) help us achieve a "faster" connection (even though were still moving at only 54, we are all moving at 54 at the same time)? Or am I completely misunderstanding this whole thing?

3. I am partial to linksys as well. Which firmware are you using and why do you like it better? What does it allow you to do that the standard firmware from linksys does not?

As far as I know, MIMO will not help you in the manner you think.

I am currently using Sveasoft's Alchemy firmware. I found that it handled lots of traffic better than the stock firmware and haven't looked back.

I'm glad tooki chimed in. I was actually considering their router that includes a gigabit switch...

[israces]

I figured as much with my understanding of all things wireless.

Originally Posted by tooki

You are, in fact, completely misunderstanding MIMO. It is NOT using extra transmission channels. It's simply using multiple antennas to receive the same transmission multiple times. Fancy math then makes that improve signal reception.

I had planned on going with the WRT54G initially (without knowing why), so thanks for the second on that one Tooki. After you mentioned the third party firmware I did some digging and came across this site for all kinds of Linksys hacks. Using their model comparison chart, I think I'm going to try to find a 4th generation WRT54GS somewhere.

[chefpastry]

Unfortunately, when I bought my WRT54G, the GS model was not available. If I had the option, I would definitely go with the GS for that extra memory and faster CPU. Good luck with everything!

[mduell]

Originally Posted by tooki

No, avoid D-Link. There are increasing reports of their routers crashing the second a Tiger-running Mac tries to communicate.

I had a Netgear, too. It failed twice, at which point i scrapped it.

The I got the D-Link, but then it died, and then the replacement started crashing constantly.

The Linksys has worked well for me, once I upgraded it to the latest firmware. (I haven't tried the third-party firmware yet.)

My D-Link (DI-624) used to reboot from time to time on my university network due to ARP floods from the hordes of Windows zombie boxes (the most I ever saw in Ethereal was 1000/second, but I'm sure it was higher at times). After upgrading the firmware it doesn't reboot anymore. I wonder if the new firmwares would also resolve whatever problems they are having with Tiger boxes.

Linksys and Netgear both shared the embarassing "super" backdoor (and even worse for Netgear, "superman"), while D-Link has had a better security history.

If you plan on running a 3rd party firmware, be advised that the WRT54G now runs VxWorks (and is having a lot of problems), while the WRT54GS and WRT54GL still run Linux.

[f1000]

I'm having problems implementing WPA2 security using the DI-624. If this unit goes bad, I'll probably spring for an AirPort. It's not worth my time troubleshooting 3rd-party junk anymore just to save a few dollars.

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by mduell

Linksys and Netgear both shared the embarassing "super" backdoor (and even worse for Netgear, "superman"), while D-Link has had a better security history.

Not a hijack, just some comments on comments: I think the Linksys "backdoor" was blown out of proportion. In order for it to be a problem, the router had to have remote admin turned on. Though there were a few units that shipped with that feature on, it is supposed to be off by default-I think the few that shipped with remote admin "on" were tested before shipping. It looks like that issue has been very well resolved at Linksys, along with the firmware versions that don't let you turn off remote admin. The last "current" post I can find referring to this problem is almost 18 months old.

Netgear, on the other hand, has shown some chutzpa in "fixing" their backdoor by just changing the username and password for it... Security: 0, Marketing: 1.

I use Linksys hardware and find it no problem to manage and keep secure, though I am oldfashioned enough to have separate router and access point hardware.