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802.11g Slows Down
Moosifer writes "Computerworld reports that in order to step on fewer 802.11b toes, the IEEE has reduced the actual throughput of 802.11g in its latest (and allegedly final) draft. I think I might keep old firmware on my linksys AP and card so that I can at least pretend I have faster gear." It's been moved from 54Mbps all the way down to 10-20Mbps, more than just a slight change.
I wonder if any early-produced products will be somehow unlockable to the faster speed.
How do they plan to market it against 802.11a? The advantage you were gaining in speed in exchange for distance is almost gone now.
It's been at least 10 seconds and there's still no first post? What's wrong with you people?
"The cost of freedom is eternal vigilance." -Thomas Jefferson
This seems slightly weird. I definitely won't be upgrading any firmware on my linksys anytime soon, as the author said. I wonder what apple will do with its airport extreme now.
-1 (Troll) is antihammer
Isn't 54mbps cards already on the market?
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
So... what else we got on the market that's better?
So politics again get in the way of technology. Are there are there any firmware options that will allow the higher throughput? Or are we stuck with only a minor improvement?
This sort of political wrangling has gotten in the way of so much decent technology. Wankel, hybrid and fuel cell engines come to mind.
I understand the need for standardization, but it shouldn't limit the technology.
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
I bought my Airport Extreme hub because I wanted mad speed. This completely defeats the purpose. I might as well have bought a regular 802.11b hub for half the price. >:-(
Feh... screw backward compatibility. That's why Windows is Windows. 802.11b is, what, 11Mb/sec? So 10-20 MB/sec is hardly worth it. I say pedal to the metal.
This is the part where you begin to post the "802.11g is Dying" troll all across slashdot...
Hey, if it's going to be newer, more expensive, with very little increase in speed, what's the point?
Uhh, besides that, I'd be willing to bet most manufacturers will just say "screw it", and give their cards the full speed anyhow, standard be-dammed.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I'm thinking that a flashing red light and a Sonalert going beep-beep-beep should be sufficient.
Hey! Where y'all goin' with my bandwidth?You were 80% angel, 10% demon. The rest was hard to explain. - Over The Rhine
"Math in a song is good."-Linford
This is huge. I work in wireless at a bug company and we're sending 802.11g gear out the door now. We're billing it at 54, but now we're going to have to tell everybody who already bought it, "Hey, we sold this at 54, but it can really only do 20! Sorry!"
This isn't going over well. People have been putting off 802.11a because they were waiting for 802.11g which was just as fast and had better range. Now they're left in the cold. I wonder what they're gonna do.
US Robotics doubles up on 802.11g data rates
OK call me a sceptic but at a 2x to 4x throughput thats not a huge leap what would be the incentive to bother? Sure if it's pretty cost neutral install g for the new gear. Most people would seem to stick with there functional b gear and leave it at that till it natrual progresses over to a g network or someing fast comes out like a,b,g chipsets.
No sir I dont like it.
Terrible. I've got a Mac and a airport extreme base station. If they try to change it from 54Mbps to something ridiculous like 20Mbps, I'm just not updating my firmware and drivers. Forget that, I paid for the speed, I want the speed!
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
I got my Wireless 11g Router (Linksys WRT54G) and PCI card (SMC2802W) for my pc upstairs and I always connect at 54 mbs (according to the software). According to the artical, it says that the Wireless g devices have to send out a warning to the wireless b devices which is what will cause the drop in speed. I say screw the warning. If a wireless b device messes up, they need to upgrade to g. Instead of kill the speed of g for the courtousy of b devices, but phase out b tech really quickly. I will take my stuff back and just run a cat9 line upstairs instead if I'm reduced below even what my ISP gives me. They need to find another solution quick or I won't upgrade my firmware and those b devices can just take it up the #%@%.
/.ers if I come off mad, but I was really excited about my new toys. I knew the risks of buying a draft technology, but I didn't think that the speed would go down to basicly nill.
I would like to say I'm sorry to the other
No.
It almost seems that the new standard will more accurately reflect the real throughput for these devices, especially in mixed 802.11b/g environments. It's better to lower the expectations now before people purchase and are disappointed. I've read plenty of comments at amazon.com from purchasers of 802.11g access points where they were surprised that "backwards compatable" meant that mixing the b/g would make everything run slower.
"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers." Carl Sagan
That renders the protocol nearly purposeless. It really isn't that much faster, to make it worth switching to from 802.11b. I am especially incensed because I opted to get the 'g' card in my Powerbook a few months ago. At least it is backwards compatible with 'b'.
A lot of people have probably already invested a lot of money in 802.11g equipment because of the 54mbps rate, and now, if they have a mixed environment, will end up with a slower rate than they had with 802.11b (10mbps vs 11mbps). I guess this is the fault of the industry for making promises and shipping equipment before the standards are finalized, but this greatly shrinks the market for 802.11g upgrades.
[dons tin-foil hat] I wonder if the 802.11a proponents *ahem* persuaded the IEEE to do this because they might have lost a lot of invested time/money if 802.11g took over the world... [/tin-foil hat]
Just plug in a cable. While I admit (by the time this posts, like seven other people before me) that knocking it down below one half of the original throughput is weird, 54Mbps is not neccessary. If I need 54Mbps I'll just grab an ethernet cable.
Normal/casual connections need no more than a megabit per second anyway. Browsing, SSH, IM etc does not require a enormous connection. Maybe if there were a "safe mode" there would be both safety for 11b and speed when only 11g is present in the area.
Now I dont' feel like I got screwed when I bought my 802.11a system.
hm.
.g.
U.S. Robotics has a free software upgrade for their 802.11b products, getting it up to about 54+ Mbps (ok, so you have to run it in a homogenous USR-upgraded 802.11b environment to get 54 Mbps throughput). You can also run 256-bit WEP as a bonus, something not available in
That makes 802.11b about 50% cheaper, some degree safer, and 100% faster? I think I'll skip this upgrade for now.
802.11g is not and never has been 54Mps.
The effective throughput of 802.11 is about 22Mps.
54Mps is the effective raw bandwidth.
I have no idea what the new changes will do the speeds of 802.11g, but no one is or has ever gotten 54Mps.
just goes to show you the danjour of making your products before the IEEE spec is released . It screwed up novell , and now it looks like it screwed up the wireless companies . Are we going to have 802.11g "54mbs variety" or draft 2 version etc. Anyw ays like most people say this certainly will push me away from 802.11g gear , I can get cheap 802.11b access points which are only half the speed , with 54mbs it was close enough to "lan speed" for me to consider the extra $100 , but now its 802.11b all the way :-)
90% of these are going to go into homes. And both 802.11b and 802.11g give you more throughput then the average user will get from their ISP. So in the end, I don't think it will matter to most people...
It appears from the comments here that quite a few people haven't bothered to read the article (slashdot users commenting before reading the article? there's a suprise!).
This is NOT a proposal that's going to slow down all the 54Mbps cards out there to 10-20Mbps, all it's saying is "Hey, we were a little optimistic, these g cards have never been 54Mbps, and it would be a little more honest at this point to tell people that they're only 10Mbps-20Mbps cards."
So hold off on your firmware upgrades if you wish, but you still won't have 54Mpbs wireless!
Jolyon
Please read my Canon EOS tech blog at http://www.everyothershot.com
I'm not at all familiar with the real-life speeds 802.11g can currently provide, but maybe the new spec, while theoretically slower, will have other benefits. Maybe it'll be more reliable and more consistent. Maybe in everyday use it really will be faster. Seriously, does anyone really see 54Mbps curently?
What's the cost difference between 'a' and 'g'? I understand the advantage of having 'g' work with 'b' but if you're building from the ground up?
-- taking over the world, we are.
I can upload/download to/from Earthlink at about 1 MBps through my DSL modem.
I've got a number of machines - laptops and desktops - but I don't really don't do any local file sharing, it's all about internet access. In other words, a step down from 11 MBps to 1 MBps.
So, I've currently got all the wired and wireless access I can reasonably use.
No whining here
668: Neighbour of the Beast
I've been seriously looking at setting up a wireless-capable Router in my home and noticed that all the ones I have seen totally step down from 802.11g to 802.11b if one 802.11b device is connected.
/. community might find that interesting.
In other words, if you've got twenty 802.11g devices connected wirelessly and one 802.11b device connects, everyone starts running at 802.11b speeds.
That's not going to stop me, but I though the
bwahaha losers. bwahahaha.
Please.. give this guy a redundent mod. His comments are judgemental against everyone, but is relating to his situation. Completely redundent.
This isn't a change in .11g. All of the draft specifications have had this, assuming you were willing to crunch the numbers to figure out the actual payload throughput.
.11g to interoperate with .11b systems it needs to use compatible preambles, PLCP headers and ACKs. Beacons need to be transmitted at a .11b data rate in order for the .11b system to operate. These compatibility features have always been in the spec and have always limited the actual throughput to around 10 Mbps in a mixed .11g/b environment. In a .11g only environment you can use higher speed preambles, PLCP, ACK and higher rate beacons which increases the throughput to mid 20s to low 30s (depending on exactly where and how you measure things, throughput is a very slippery term).
.11b networks. They are designed to interoperate with .11 networks, so the preamble is the same as the .11 one. The ACK and Beacons in most .11b setups are configured for a basic rate of 1 and 2 Mbps; instead of 1, 2, 5.5 and 11 Mbps. This lowers the .11b throughput in order to keep .11 network compatibility.
.11g products all support this already. I don't know exactly which draft they were based off of, so it's possible there will be a small throughput change when they are upgraded. They may be faster or slower when upgraded to be standard compliant.
This is magazine writers finally listening to what was being said. Or it's just a slow news day at Computerworld.
In order for
This same problem is present
To the best of my knowledge the existing pre-standard
Guys,
The 54Mbps is the signal rate of the 802.11g modulation scheme. With the per-packet overhead, the effective data rate is around 20 Mbps, and they're trying to clarify that to consumers.
FastEthernet is 100 Mbps, right? Well, actually, the signal rate on 100Base-TX is 125 Mbps. It takes 5 bits on the cable to carry 4 bits of actual payload data.
I'm not suprised by this at all. Transfers over FTP from one 802.11g equipped PowerBook to another only went at about 2 megs/sec, which sure isn't 54mbps.
Though this is twice as fast as the 802.11b AirPort cards which would max about at around 1 meg/sec. And since those are supposed to go at 11, would saying 10-12 for g be a little underestimated?
Vonal Declosion
The rate on the box != the actual throughput you get.
Due to protocol overhead, backwards compatability overhead, physical environment, yada yada yada, you'll see varying throughput.
With current implementations of the draft solution mixed mode performance is *terrible*. 10 Mb/s mixed mode is an improvement. Right now your draft
The standards body hasn't throttled down
Still, by the end of the summer you'll see throughput at 30 Mb/s in pure
In a pure
The compatability
I believe that the IEEE is sending a message to all of the companies who produced products based on the DRAFT standard. Mayhaps the IEEE thought the companies that produced 54G crap were a little too big for their britches. A wake-up call perhaps?
--FS20
Watch as wireless networking takes a step back.
And your comments are, what?, judgmental? (Note spelling (yes, I am having fun)).
And I'm clueless, naked, and watching BASEketball! Woo hoo!
668: Neighbour of the Beast
TimeWarner sucks. Death to all the monopolies!
Go Wifi ! GO municipal broadband! Go wifi municipal broadband!
From just reading various comments above this one and the article here that was posted it seems to me that there could be some confusion.
From how I have read it even though the connection of 11g is 54Mbps, the actual data flow is only around 10-20Mbps. So that's a loss of around 34-44Mbps of content-negotiation, encryption and whatever being lugged about as well.
Perhaps the IEEE new standard has taken this weird large data overhead into consideration and is now advertising their 11g as a "final data rate" of 10-20Mbps??? But really there is 54Mbps overall, you just don't get to use it?
I might be completely wrong here. It just seems like everywhere is quoting different speeds but nowhere have I actually found a source that shows 11g running with data transfers between computers of 54Mbps (around 6-7MB a second)
Everybody's going on and on about how it's hardly faster than .11b. Read the freakin article:
.11b is about 5Mbps true throughput. .11g will be twice that in "safe mode" and four times that in pure .11g mode.
"Li estimated that that in mixed 802.11b and 802.11g networks running standard TCP/IP Internet protocols, this will reduce actual throughput to 10Mbit/sec. -- while pure 802.11g networks will have actual data rates of around 20Mbit/sec. Li pointed out that even at these data rates the 802.11g devices still outperform 802.11b devices, which have a raw data rate of 11Mbit/sec. but an actual throughput of about half that speed. "
See that? He's saying
The article would have been much clearer if he had said ".11g is being reduced from 54Mbps raw data rate to X Mbps raw data rate, and from Y Mbps true throughput to 10 or 20Mbps true throughput." Instead he says it's getting reduced from 54Mbps raw data rate to 10 or 20Mbps true throughput. Way to mismatch your units to get the biggest reduction possible.
The post and article compare incompatible metrics, 54Mbps is the theoretical bandwith, vs. 20Mbps measured throughput. The maximum throughput of the draft devices is between 22-24Mbps. The new 10Mbps mode is only when an 802.11b network is detected in the same channel, which is better than the nasty and unpredictable timeslicing that happens with most draft equipment. So... real speed loss = 22-24 to 20. Bad, but not that bad.
-Ryan C.
-Ryan C.
Even before this change, 802.11g didn't get 54. It got about 24. So now it only gets 20. It will still be advertised as 54. Just as 802.11b only gets 5 even though it is advertised as 11. BTW, 802.11a which is also "54" only gets 24.
This is a very bad choice.
Right now I have an 802.11b access point that can do 22Mbps with other Dlink stuff. I recently installed newer firmware on it that supposedly made it even faster. The only problem is that the extensions to make it go faster are not standard. Thus, my Linksys card will never be able to connect at 22Mbps.
By dropping the 802.11g standard down to twice the speed of 802.11b they're just causing the market to fragment. Everyone is going to develop different propritary extensions to the standard so they can get the 54Mbps that they already printed on their boxes.
"802.11g" equipment is already shipping. They're just not going to get manufacturers to make their equipment slower. This means everyone's going to have their own proprietary standards and dealing with them in gonna be a bitch.
Life is too short to proofread.
A spelling quibble.
You poor sod!
Those warts on your dick aren't gonna go away/
Unless.....
Still cool, naked, and watching BASEketball.
Or is it BaseketBall?
Or BaseKetBall?
You tell me...
668: Neighbour of the Beast
Take a look at the Tom's Hardware review of the latest 11g wireless card from Netgear.
t ge ar-06.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/network/20030522/ne
None of the real life transfer rates achieved in that review broke 20Mbit, so is this latest announcement really that bad?
Are those numbers bogus?
You were 80% angel, 10% demon. The rest was hard to explain. - Over The Rhine
"Math in a song is good."-Linford
So, like, what happened to c-f? Did those like totally suck, or what?
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
I had it right the first time. That should be micro-bits-per-second... Silly powers of ten.
Just to provide a couple of numbers (what a concept).
.11b 1500 byte payload, 11 Mbps ACK, short preamble, 11 Mbps payload rate -- has a duration of about 1685 uSec -- effective UDP/IP throughput is about 6.80 Mbps .11g 1500 byte payload, .11b compatible, 11 Mbps ACK, short preamble, 54 Mbps payload rate -- has a duration of about 800 uSec -- effective UDP/IP throughput is about 14.3 Mbps .11g 1500 byte payload, not .11b compatible, 22 Mbps ACK, 54 Mbps payload rate -- has a duration of about 385 uSec -- effective UDP/IP throughput is about 29.6 Mbps.
These assume "average" backoff values. Packet on air durations rounded to nearest 5 uSec to protect the innocent.
Average TCP/IP throughputs are at least a third lower than the UDP throughput.
Actually, I can understand the reasons for doing this. IIRC, 802.11x works on frequencies that are for "public" use, and as such, producing too much junk in the air could (and probably) will screw up all kinds of other services, seeing how this technology will probably spread to cover all populated areas. I may be confusing this with a different technology, so please excuse me if I am... It's Thursday and I'm already drunk.
Don't ask me why that was a blockquote. Just to make the layout interesting, I guess.I can't wait til there's an over-clocking culture for G cards.
31337 haxors will be rewriting drivers and soldering on old cordless phone antennas and adding fans and paint to their cards. We'll have web pages about how you can increase range with a 9v battery and get maximum speed with a driver mod, ventilated card-case and a pringles can.
this is gonna rock.
I don't understand the math going on - this "broadcast message" that says "hey, I'm here!" causes the 802.11b signals to drop from 11Mb/s down to about 6Mb/s, but it causes 802.11g to drop from 54Mb/s to 15-20Mb/s. Now, first order logic tells me that if the two standards broadcast the same message at the same rate, we should see the same deterioration - let's say 5 Mb/s - degrading the 802.11g to about 50mB/s.
Why does this message kill its bandwidth by up to 80%??? Does it require that much error correction when it operates in a hybrid environment? Because that's some serious error correction if so.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
I did a google on the new Google News section for more news on this. The only sites that come up with anything with the standerd lowering the speed are ComputerWorld and Slashdot. No one else has said anything.
:-)
So, I went to IEEE's website. I found the latest 802.11g standard (9.0) and the last one released (7.2) and downloaded them both. I went thru them side by side. Not alot of changes, but I did find the part for the "warning" message. Its in there. I looked at the logic of how its so suppost to be implimented. After reviewed them inside and out, its my professional opion that these changes will have any major drop in speed. (I don't want to go into to detail, because explaining everything would take to much time and very few people would understand it even if i did, so just trust me on this.) I don't understand why they think it will, because there is no logical reason this change it to go down to 20 mbs max. I believe this type of change will drop it by just about 128 bytes every 10th of a second (at 54mbs with a very clean connection) after doing the math.
I think they might of been jumping the gun.
No.
TS. It wasn't a ratified standard. Too bad. I mean seriously, if you implement non-standard systems, this is the price you pay. If you didn't point out to your customers that what you were selling them wasn't a ratified standard, then it's your butt in the sling when they complain.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Dunno about that, but at the end of the article from Computerworld, it mentioned that new 802.11g chipsets will be shipping in July. To me, that seems like more than a "truth-in-advertising" change to the standard. It would be nice to actually know what the differences between this and the old 802.11g are over a range of operating conditions (homogeneous/heterogeneous networks, etc).
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
802.11bluetooth
Using its proprietary extensions, Atheros is claiming to deliver up to 90Mbps of real-world throughput (with a raw data rate of 108Mbps).
Picture an office using high speed wireless. They could pick up shop and move someplace else if need be without worrying about it being wired.
Granted most office space is/should be wired, but by choosing a place that isn't could save you a lot of money. You might even want to have your business very mobile.
Just a thought.
-- taking over the world, we are.
The problem here is just that the reporter seems to be twisting the numbers to try to make it sound worse than it is. His very first sentence compares "true throughput for Internet-type connections of between 10M and 20Mbit/sec" with "54Mbit/sec. raw data rate", which is misleading. Raw data rate and actual throughput are (unfortunately) only vaguely related. If you want accurate numbers for g and b, compare apples to apples. According to the article, if you pay close enough attention, the real numbers are:
Now, maybe in earlier drafts the actual throughput numbers for 802.11g were supposed to be higher, but you wouldn't know it from reading the article. Looking at his past articles it seems like the reporter might just not know the difference, he uses 'throughput', 'data', 'data rate', 'raw data rate', 'data speeds', 'raw data speeds', and 'bandwidth' all interchangeably. The differences between some of those are subtle (or non-existent), but if he's confused enough then comparing 'raw data rate' to 'actual throughput' could conceivably have been an honest mistake...
The article is misleading.
It's comparing RAW speed with REAL speed. We all knew that there would be a slowdown when b is mixed with g. So what's the commotion about?
RAW speed of G is 54. REAL speed is 10-20.
RAW speed of A is 54. REAL speed is ?.
Insn't the Reg article messed up? I thought WPA was an interim solution until 802.11i is ratified. WPA is a software change based on WEP while 802.11i completely changes the encryption algorithm.
So if they made some change to the final 802.11g standard such that the througput is only 20 Mbps, that's not much of a change from the draft.
And it has always been the case that in a mixed enviornment (802.11b coexisting with 802.11g), you can't get maximum 802.11g throughput. The exact amount of slowdown will vary.
So in summary, I'm not convinced that anything this Computerworld article is reporting about the 802.11g standard is actually a significant change from the draft. They've just compared some numbers in a meaningless way to sensationalize the story.
Disclaimer: At work I'm involved in the development of 802.11g products.
The encoding is at 54 Mbps: number of symbols per second, right? The throughput is the actual data rate that contains information exclusive of error correction and framing.
802.11g has produced 10 to 25 Mbps of throughput since they started working with 54 Mbps encodings.
This is a total misunderstanding, unfortunately, of both the article (which states the problem almost correctly) and its consequences.
Read any good article about 802.11g since it started shipping in draft form, and you'll see that a net throughput of 25 Mbps or less (much less in mixed b/g environments) was always what was produced.
Freelance tech journalist for the Economist, MIT Technology Review, Macworld, and others
. . . end users would only need to download a software driver to update their 802.11g cars with the new standard.
I didn't realize that the automobile industry was so cutting-edge. I dont know if I want a software driver, though.
"Randy Conklin, director of operations for Broadband Central, a wireless Internet service provider based in Draper, Utah, that serves seven western states with a network built around wireless LAN gear, said the10Mbit/sec. data rate for 802.11g isn't good enough for advanced applications such as voice over IP or video. To support those applications, Broadband Central would need at least 20Mbit/sec. data rates, he said. As a result, the service provider will look to deploy pure 802.11g service offering the faster data rates. "
until 802.11x products start appearing on the market? Appart from a speed increase.
If I want a (affordable) wireless network speed, I may just as well buy 802.11a for my home network, and give a damn about legacy cards.
anyone who knows what a megabit is probably isn't a casual user as I mentioned above.
Anybody who has read Nintendo Power magazine since the late-1990 release of Dr. Mario (when NP began to publish the ROM size of Game Paks) knows what a megabit is. "Eleven megabits per second" means "one copy of Donkey Kong Country in three seconds," as DKC is a 32 Mbit Game Pak.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I hope apple and linksys just keep the standard they are using now... Defacto standard, eat that IEEE!
"Another computer maker, Apple Computer Inc., has also released devices using the 802.11g standard -- and has promised that its customers will also be able to upgrade to the final standard once it's in place. "
More like, Apple promised that its customers will be able to DOWNGRADE to the final standard... WOOHOO!
- Jeff
Modesty is one of life's greatest attributes
It's just that in a network with 802.11b equipment, it'll throttle back to 10-20Mbps.
You should be *very* afraid of this. If an ISP decides to put a high-power 802.11b network in your town, your 802.11g router has just retarded itself back to 802.11b speeds. Think about it this way, when the FCC gave the OK for 900mhz cordless phones, they worked great *UNTIL* AT&T got the OK to use the same frequency range for cell phones. Then all of those home cordless phones became static-ridden junk. We're going to have the same level of saturation in the next few years for the 2.4ghz band (the band that the current cordless phones AND 802.11 routers use).
I can just see the complaints being filed with the FCC as all of this wireless equipment we're buying starts going to pot on us because we have this giant radio signal "collision domain" that we're going to use up.
Polymorphism -- It's what you make of it.
I can't believe it took this long for someone to pick up on the fact that they were comparing to completely different numbers.
The drop in effective data throughput in pure 802.11g environments is only about 2Mbps (from 22Mbps to 20). It's nothing to sneeze at, but it's hardly the 24Mbps drop that the headline would imply.
I wish people would read the posts before posting themselves.
Not only would it stop these endless reposts of basicly the same comments.. (i.e. G's never been 54 it's 22, B was never 11 it was 5 etc, etc, etc, blah, balh, blah)
Exactly how may people read the posts before posting their own replys?
Maybe if this was done we could have some more entertaining and informative debates.
Grrrr
Hopefully this will be (Score: 5 INFORMATIVE)
but most likely....... (Score: -1: Offtopic)
I'm not sure why everybody here is panicing, and vowing not to upgrade firmware. IEEE is not planning on changine the manner in which the 802.11g protocol communicates - they simply want to revise their published specs on the realisticamount of bandwidth which the protocol is capable of (it's still CAPABLE of 54mbps, but this will NEVER realisitcally happen).
Look at other protocols; 802.11b can't do anything near 11mbps, or even half that. Fast Ethernet actually runs at 125mbps, but achieves a real-world throughput of 100mbps. ATA transfer rates are pitiful compared to their published 'capabilities'; very few ATA devices exist that can even achieve 66mbps, while the spec has already been inflated to 133mbps. However, the more 'professional' standards live up to their quoted specs much better (ie. firewire and scsi).
In short, all 802.11g hardware will continue to operate in the same fashion. The IEEE simply doesn't want to be making false claims.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Seems like they should have called it 802.11e or something.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Is this even really news?
At work we've been using 802.11a and 802.11g devices (not to mention 802.11b) since the absolute first days they were each available. All the testing I've ever done was far from impressive and probably close to what they are saying in this article:
802.11b
Advertised Speed: 11 megabit or 1.38 megabytes/sec
Advertised Range: 150 feet
Real-world Speed: 4.5 megabit or 0.55 megabytes/sec
Real-world Range: 100-250 feet depending on interference
802.11a
Advertised Speed: 54 megabit or 6.75 megabytes/sec
Advertised Range: 150 feet
Real-world Speed: 21.5 megabit or 2.7 megabytes/sec
Real-world Range: 50-100 feet (outside of that and the link is so weak the real throughput is worse than 802.11b)
802.11g
Advertised Speed: 54 megabit or 6.75 megabytes/sec
Advertised Range: 150 feet
Real-world Speed: 19.5 megabit or 2.45 megabytes/sec
Real-world Range: 100-200 feet (at 200 feet you can still get better than 802.11b throughput, while 802.11a usually is completely gone at 100 feet unless you are in an open field)
The reality is that they had better start advertising the true speeds and problems of 802.11a/g because a lot of people get disappointed when they compare them to standard 100Base-T wired connections -- to me it's flat-out false advertising. The real-world range of 802.11g is similar to 802.11b and its real-world throughput is consistently 3-5 times faster than 802.11b.
But to say that 802.11a/g are "54 megabit" so people compare them to a 100 megabit ethernet connection is REALLY wrong. It reminds me of the "56k" modems we have in our computers that never connect faster than 40k-45k for most people.
(for the record, our wired 100Base-T network that all these devices are plugged into is very fast -- we have no problem getting 8 to 11.5 megabytes-per-second of throughput)
Advertisers say the car I bought can do 180 MPH. Just because I can not legally go above 70 MPH on the freeway doens't mean that the advertising was false or that the car is only capable of 40% of its advertised throughput.
Similiarly, I'm sure the devices produced by "Bug Company" can do 45Mbps -- just because that speed is over the standard limit, doesn't make the advertising any less true.
Modems are another fine example of this. Most modems routinely connect as speeds less than their advertised speed -- sometimes considerably less. I've never heard of companies refunding people for their modems because of this though.
The
What a misleading article. That does it. I'm never choosing the CowboyNeal poll option ever again!
-- thinkyhead software and media
I don't CARE if my 802.11g steps on my 802.11b ... let it. I have 802.11b in a couple of devices (one requires a CF card and the other requires Linux), both of which can handle being slowed down all the way to 1Mb without me caring.
... give us a mode that allows the "g" to step on the "b". Don't make it default, but make it a -standard- option so that there is interoperability. I know that many places won't want to use it like public APs, but those of us who are only using our own configuration should be able to.
My hope was to have an 802.11g card in anything that could take it and use 802.11b as a fall-back. That way I can have a faster network where possible but still have connectivity in my other devices.
So
I don't expect it to run at 54Mb/s as advertised, but open the floodgates a bit more when possible.
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
Anyone actually get 56kbps out of their modem in the States? No, because the FCC limits them to 52.3k.
Okay it's not as big a disparity from the original spec for 802.11g. BTW, that was supposed to be 54 Mbps, not 45.
Want something nearly as good without laying out the dough for the more expensive 802.11g gear? Get DLink's Air Plus line. When used with each other (and especially with the new 4x firmware), you can easily get a lot better throughput than what we're now looking at (ie the revised g rate of 10-20 Mbps).
I can just see the complaints being filed with the FCC as all of this wireless equipment we're buying starts going to pot on us because we have this giant radio signal "collision domain" that we're going to use up.
How long will it be before the techno-vandals start building pocket jammers to bring down public wireless networks? Even worse, microwave oven magnetrons put out over 600W of RF at 2.45GHz, damn close to the 802.11b/g frequency bands. A bit of creative retuning and you could have a really fun time during, say, final exams on a whole campus, or take down a complete office building's network.
Screw These A-Holes. I bought that so I could have something faster than b. And the current firmware sucks, and I don't want the new stuff now.... Anyone know a good source for old linksys firmware :(
Saying that your car is only capable of 70MPH is incorrect. The car is not capable of 40% of its advertised throughput, it is capable of 100% -- the full 180MPH. If you only drive it at 70MPH, that's your choice -- the only thing stopping you from driving at 180MPH is fear (death, tickets, etc.).
Your comparison of your car's speed with the issue at hand isn't really appropriate. The main problem being that there is no "speed limit" on wireless devices (FCC radio regulations aren't applicable at this point) -- people expect to get full performance out of thier gear.
The main beef that I'm seeing that people have is that so many devices were advertised at 54Mbps and now we're finding out that it won't be so. What most people are failing to realize is that every one of those ads that I've bothered to investigate had a disclaimer explicitly stating that 802.11g was not standardized yet and was *subject to change.* The same goes for the modem issue you mentioned -- every modem box has it in plain print that they're not going to connect at 56Kbps.
Sure, it's a bummer that 802.11g won't be the 54Mbps dream we all thought it would be. But, and this has been said already, really, what are we losing? Once you factor in overhead and real-world tests, the performance of 11g networks was pretty much what's being stated as in the new drafts anyway.
I dont know why people piss and moan when they buy equipment that is based upon a draft standard, then the standard changes. If you wanted great 54Mbit wireless, and knew anything about wireless networking, you should have bought the 802.11a standard.
More expensive? Not by enough to make a difference.
this is pretty much off topic, but is the security of 802.11g better than a or b? I'd be ready to jump ship on either if they could offer something more than the security joke they have going now...
I'm sure lots of companies will provide old-standard hardware. Call it 'super-g' or something, just like with the non-standard 56k modems way back when. Perhaps with a warning that it'll interfere with other standards.
If it reall is incompatable and interfering, then you probably won't want to use it.
What I wonder, is wether or not older hardware that works with the draft standard will still work.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
I think the real problem here is the fact that, what your told by the marketing hype of a networks speed, dosen't match up with what you get in real world use. This is true with dial-up modems, cable modems, DSL, and suprise, suprise Wi-Fi.
What would be really nice is if networking hardware and ISPs were required to post realistic averages of performance along with the max speed of there products.
But then again, I guess it's all relative, or is there a pratical way of gaging realistic performance?
Shouldn't an old card with an old hub be able to work at 54mps?
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
For those who want to actually understand the protection mechanisms being used in 802.11g to prevent a hell of a mess which will happen in mixed b/g systems without it, read the following:
u re _article/OEG20030501S0009
http://www.commsdesign.com/csdmag/sections/feat
Don't let the marketeers (disclaimer: like myself) get to you with their advertised data rates!
I told you so...
Dude- you are so smart. You totally predicted that IEEE was going to revise the published throughput from 22 Mbps to 20 Mbps. Man- all of those poor suckers that already bought 802.11g equipment totally think that they are capable of 22 Mbps when they can only do 20 Mbps. What a bunch of suckers.
These changes might very well *NOT* be fixable in software
No shit, because there really aren't any changes. This doesn't change any hardware at all. It just makes the marketing numbers more accurate.
The solution.
Also available at your local walmart and home depot (or currys, or tesco, or whatever hardware/electronics store you have in your country).
Test one first. Normally the foam adhesive is VERY easy to remove (almost too easy), and doesn't damage most surfaces (apart from drywall).
Note: Use white cable for best effect.
Shouldn't cost you more than $20 or $30.
Solution #2.
HTH!
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Now that I think of it, why isn't this in the IEEE spec?
That is, why don't we have a spec that has an "802.11b compatiblity" mode and a "full 802.11g" mode(sorry for the name change)?
-cmh
Quick, hide all the Gigabit ethernet....we wouldn't want people comparing the marketing numbers to ACTUAL THROUGHPUT.
All I really need is a wireless technology that doesn't suck all life out of my laptop battery before you can say "802.11". Any recommendations?
Thet cable from my loft to my garage (where I need Internet access) will look a bit funny, but I can disguise it by hanging some clothes and pretending is a drying line.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
If linksys doesn't want massive numbers of returns they have to offer a tri-mode option. It should consist of the ability to use 802.11a, 802.11g and "54 Mode". My base station already lets me switch from A, G and Mixed. So what's one more mode? Who running a home network is going to cut their bandwidth in half to be compliant? Not me. No sir, I don't like it.
Does this mean that my router and PC Card with the "54g" logo on them will become collectors items?
If speed is reduced, why should there be a third standard now? Some companies are coming close to implementing the a and b in the same chip, which should nicely standardize WLANs but the addition of g for no useful reason is a pain for this market.
Perhaps there should be one standard that covers both frequencies and enforces the implementation of both by vendors.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
This news makes me feel even better about splurging on 11a.
Please an advice from you experts !
... will I get at least 50Mbit real throughput ?
Hi,
I attended a presentation where US Robotics announced the availability of 802.11g hardware that has a turbo mode capable of up to 100Mbit using only one single wi-fi channel.
Do you think that this will work well ?
I mean
What will they do now that the final G spec says they have to slow down in mixed B/G enviroments ?
Will they provide a setting where you can ignore the slowdown ? (eg. poor interoperability with B hardware but full speed with US.Robotics G gear)
thanks !
Sorry for being a bit off-topic here, but I'd like to ask the experts regarding VOIP and Wi-Fi:
What's currently the best method to make secure VOIP calls over Wi-FI ?
WEP is not secure and many VOIP phones do not support IPSEC or PPTP VPNs thus you need to transmit raw packets but that way anyone with a wireless sniffer can log your conversation.
Is Secure RTP the solution ?
What's the percentage of VOIP phones that support S-RTP ?
Thanks for infos.
Mb == marketing bits
MB == marketing bytes
Neither has any relation to real-world quantities. Same holds true for HDD capacities.
Never refuse a breath mint.
I've only got one 802.11b connection for my laptop, the rest of my house is physically wired with Cat6, but your notion of a disclaimer does make sense, everything else has one, and if the devices did then oh well. The modem example is not really appropriate though because there IS an FCC mandated speed limit and a note on the box stating that you'll be the "luckiest man man man man man on the planet planet planet planet" to actually approach that speed anyways :)
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
is that utilizing compression ? I KNOW i've seen the FCC rule in print, not that I am doubting you but how do they rationalize it ?
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Also, despite mobile phones now being pretty much ubiquitous, I'd say that most people have an ordinary phone in their home, that requires a cable. Those cables... are often attached to the walls. Shock horror!
People seem generally able to cope.
Be careful! New moon tonight.