Apple Clarifies 802.11g Controversy

Wireless Spider writes "A couple of days ago there was a controversy over the 802.11g data rates and supposed changes in IEEE specification. Apple has clarified this controversy, stating that nothing has changed in the spec. It seems the article from Computerworld was somewhat misleading. Quote from an Apple Vice President: "802.11g is still a 54Mbit/sec standard," Bell told MacCentral. "802.11b is 11Mbit/sec, but your actual throughput is somewhere between 4 and 5-1/2Mbit/sec. The number that's quoted is the data rate that's used between the radios (raw data rate, which includes the protocols etc.)" After reading this article featured on Macworld, 802.11g transfer rate controversy meaningless, says Apple, it seems clear that the people at Computerworld didn't do their homework for the article featured on May 22. Also, there seems to be a lot of politics between 802.11g and a supporters, and that every article posted on the Internet about this subject might not be true, or could be politically motivated."

Comments

802.11g spec

[sargon]

I voted on the 802.11g spec. We all knew the problems we would have with 802.11b integration (and which have been widely reported in various interoperability tests). We had to draw the line somewhere. And when you draw lines, someone will invariably take issue.

It is obvious that CW's reporter talked to someone who had an axe to grind. Maybe when we publish the spec in June (possibly July---yes, the IEEE also has a bureaucracy) that reporter will sit down and read it instead of reporting what someone else has said.

This assumes that the reporter can understand what he/she is reading (a BIG assumption these days with reporters).

Re:802.11g spec

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok,

Lets step back a bit, I was on the commity that voted for this, I work for Apple, I have no idea WTF you are, infact there are only 11 people on the commity (I have no idea why 11 so don't bother asking), but this person is not on the commity.

The commity memebers are senior engineers and scientists, from various parts of the world, there is only one member from the us. And her name is Tracy McNeal (she works for Xerox).

I work for Nokia and I do not know who you are or what you are claming about. We did reduce the speed, but this was due to physical constrains. And the reduction is not as dramatic as CW suggests.

Thank you.

Micheal Van Laferie
Amsterdam.

Re:802.11g spec

[Anonymous Coward]

Good lord, this is a nice way to troll.

http://slashdot.org/~sargon has worked for or is working for the following companies.

1. NASA
2. Alcatel
3. CISCO
4. "I have worked for three phone companies, so I can talk about the hardware side."
5. Transmeta (see google to search for this one)
6. Redhat
7. OpenBSD (OK HOW DOES ONE WORK FOR THEM!)

This guy is nuts and obviously with a big ego, more probably he's just a dropout, jobless technocrate (or less).

still misleading

[Trepidity]

You quote raw signal rate and actual throughput for b, but not for g, which is a bit misleading. For those who still haven't figured it out:

b: 11Mbps signalling rate, 4-5 Mbps effective throughput
g: 54Mbps signalling rate, ~22 Mbps effective throughput.

[I don't know anything about a, so I'll let someone else comment about that.]

Re:Slow down your G to help your neighbors B?

[sargon]

No.

Yes, they are using the correct form.

[mindstrm]

It's 54,000,000 bits per second, which is a Megabit per second.. both under the old system AND the new one.

Yes, I realize this contradicts what you might think about a Kilobyte (now Kibi) being 1024 bits, and so on and so forth.. however data transmission speeds have ALWAYS been specified in metric units of bits per second.

A kilobit per second was always 1000 bits per second.

When someone says megabit, it always meant one million bits per second, not some strange power of two. That only comes about when you are dealing with memory.

With the internet, it got confusing because peopel started going from kilobits to kilobytes, or writing software to show upload rates without real knowledge of how thigns are technically specified, so it got muddy, and you have to guess what people mean.

However, in the case of 1.544Mbps T1, 10, 100, 1000, or 10000base ethernet, 11Mbps wireless, or 54Mbps wireless, we are talking about powers of 10

Credibility

[Jade E. 2]

Oh, sure. *I* posted this when the original article came up, and nobody cared. But then some fly-by-night company nobody's ever heard of named 'apple' steals my comment, and suddenly it's news :)

Re:Question...Nightmare Scenario.

[90XDoubleSide]

If you have an AirPort Exteme Base Station, you can just go to the AirPort Admin Utility and select "802.11g Only" from the Mode pop-up menu in the AirPort tab.