Wireless Networking Speeds of 540 Mbps w/ 802.11n

GuitarNeophyte writes "The Register reports three of the major players in forming the 802.11n standard have agreed to join forces in order to bring the new protocol into reality. Speculation states that the speeds using the new standard could be in the 540Mbps area! "Rather than see the 802.11n standards-setting process become deadlocked, as has happened in other cases, most notably ultrawideband, TGn Sync and WWiSE have clearly realized it makes more sense to work together than against each other.""

Comments

I'll believe it when I see it.

[TripMaster Monkey]

This is excellent news for everyone, although there's a world of difference between pledging to work together and actually submitting a unified proposal to the IEEE.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it.

[op12]

Given the short timeline, and this:

"In reality, there was relatively little to differentiate the two proposals, and if they can indeed submit a joint proposal next month, it seems certain that the merged specification will be approved by the IEEE 802.11n Task Group - aka TGn - as the foundation for the future standard."

it seems like it's not going to be that complex.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it.

[Masq666]

It'll probably take some time, but i hope we'll see this in about 1-3 years. Im sure this will come into the market, the question is when. It would be to stop progress if they hold something like this back...

Re:I'll believe it when I see it.

[kidtux1]

At least this , hopefully, means we won't start having a wifi standard war like what always goes on with dvds +/-, blue ray, hd dvd -_- -- http://kunae.blogspot.com/

Re:I'll believe it when I see it.

[Anonymous Coward]

The only limitaion is receiver bandwidth.
  Consider that right now, 802.11, a, b g is more than 1 allocated channel wide , it's just a matter of RECEIVER bandwidth, but Ill bet the distance is inferior to a, b or g!
  Faster is just an increase in transmitter clock speed , reciving it is just an increase in the receivers required bandwidth and hence an increse in noise and a decrease in diatance

Re:I'll believe it when I see it.

[Mattygfunk1]

Agreed. Networking gear and configuration really is complex for non-techy households that will hopefully house the majority of wireless gear in the future. Proof is already in the number of open nodes around. If they play nice everyone wins.

__
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Re:I'll believe it when I see it.

[bigwavejas]

I think it behooves all parties to expedite this as quickly as possible. I wouldn't anticipate any delays/ problems in submitting this proposal. Sounds like they're already on the same page.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes:
  Show me the radio physics of it
How will they increase the distance or keep at hundreds of feet as 802,11a,b or g while speading the signal over more bandwidth?, Not that it doesn't have good application,
It has excellent possibilties medical imaging comes to mind !
Who needs hundreds of feet, ill take 540 megabits at 20 feet ,there are super applications for that kind of speed!

Re:I'll believe it when I see it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Intel is making a tunable radio chip for 802.11n. Imagine the hackability. Someone could hack the firmware and make it operate 10x faster than 540Mbps! (Just use more spectrum, better coding algorithm, etc.) Hehehehe.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it.

[Guspaz]

And don't forget there is a world of difference between advertised speed and actual speed.

If the pattern holds true to the same as 802.11g, we will see 200mbit at close range, and 100mbit at normal range.

In other words they will claim 540mbit but we'll get 100mbit wired performance.

The problem is that even 540mbit is not enough because a wireless network is like a hub, not a switch. All bandwidth is shared, and it is half duplex; only one person can send at a time on the entire wireless network. 540mbit sounds amazing, but even at the 200mbit you get at close range, if you have ten people on the network, each can only get 20mbit if they all transfer at the same time. I imagine collisions would further reduce that. And cut some more off for upstream usage.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it.

[Brazilian Joe]

As far as I have read about the subject, looks like they are using teh frequencies in a more intelligent way, pretty much like optimizing code. Do more with less. A quick google will find you a few so-called 'pre-n' wifi, some companies have started developing/selling equipment based on each of teh two standards wannabees (TNG and WWISE), pretty much a gamble. Bet on the right one, you'll have a head start over teh competition to have equipment ready to the market. it will have longer range AND more speed. Some even claim smal improvements (up to 20%) if you use pre-n equipment mixed with (their, of course) a/g equipment. I expect the range to at least double (at least in the technical/theoretical papers)

Re:I'll believe it when I see it.

[Matador]

My thoughts exactly !

540Mbps .. vrooooom !!!

Re:I'll believe it when I see it.

[skarphace]

I was at CompUSA yesterday(shudder) and IIRC, the box stated that n was full duplex.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it.

[Guspaz]

First off, 802.11n doesn't exist. It won't exist for years (OK, maybe one) until the standard is done. You are probably referring to something like Belkin's "pre-n" products, which have NOTHING to do with 802.11n.

Second, wireless networks are by definition half duplex, just because the wired connection to an access point is full duplex doesn't mean the wireless connection is too. Think about it, only one transmission can happen on a wireless network at a time. That is, only one packet can be moving at any given time. You have only one frequency you broadcast and receive on. If you are receiving a packet that means somebody else is sending a packet. If you were to try to send a packet while receiving, you'd have two people broadcasting at the same time. That doesn't work.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it.

[mungojam]

It is my understanding that one of the fundamental improvements with the 802.11n proposals is the use of MIMO.

I believe this entails using one antenna and freq channel for sending and another ant and channel for receiving, thereby allowing full duplex comms.

Infact, I think it might use more than one channel for each depending on various factors. I think the underlying protocol isn't too different, hence the ease of backward compatability.

Might all be wrong though?

Re:I'll believe it when I see it.

[Guspaz]

Adding another frequency doesn't give you full duplex communication, it just doubles effective network bandwidth.

You can call it full duplex I suppose, but even then it's shared full duplex. So long as there are only two devices, they can transmit to eachother on seperate channels. But what happens when a third device pops onto the network? It needs to send on one of those two channels, and devices need to send to it on one of those two channels. You still end up having only two channels, but three devices.

Personally I thought that mimo involved sending the exact same signal out through multiple antennas and then using the multiple identical signals for greater signal strength, such as using bouncing signals to their advantage.

Either way, it isn't full duplex wireless. The only potential full duplex wireless technology is UWB, because there is the potential for so many differeng timing patterns that every device could have their own, so non-shared full duplex (Until you ran out of timing patterns, in which case you can increase the resolution).

Re:I'll believe it when I see it.

[skarphace]

I'm not understanding how it is impossible for full duplex communication over RF. Why couldn't you do something like the GP suggested and have dual antennas, one for Tx and another for Rx? The only place signals can conlict are in/on the antenna, correct?

Is the premise the same in the air as it is on a wire? Do signals on the same frequency really interfere with each other that much?

Excuse my ignorance in the RF field. And yes, I was talking about the Pre-N equipment in my previous post.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it.

[Guspaz]

Is the premise the same in the air as it is on a wire? Do signals on the same frequency really interfere with each other that much?

Yes.

Think about it like this, you and your friend are standing in front of a bowl. You have a bunch of pennies. You randomly let some fall out of your hand into the bowl. Your friend writes down how many pennies are in the bowl, 5. That is how many pennies you dropped. You clean out the bowl.

Next your friend does the same thing. He drops 7. You write that down and take them out.

That is sort of how wireless works.

Now, imagine if you were both to both drop the random number of pennies into the bowl at the same time. There are now 12 pennies in the bowl. Who dropped how many pennies? It is impossible to know! All you know is there are 12 pennies, not who put which ones in.

That is called a collision, and when it happens in the wireless world, you would clear out the pennies, wait a random amount of time, then dump more pennies back in hoping your buddy waited a different amount of time than you. Usually this works, if not, try again.

So, you see, when you broadcast a wireless signal, you are putting that signal into the air (Well, not really the air, but you understand). Once it is out there it is free to mix and mingle with any other signal out there. You must simply hope that while you are sending your signal (packet), nobody else interrupts you, or else a collision will occur.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it.

[skarphace]

Well, your analogy is a little strange. If what you describe a collision as is just out of sequence packets, that shouldn't matter. And if the AP was level 2 aware, you'd think it could sort it out.

Unless you are talking about peices smaller then a packet which would no doubt screw things up.

It's much easier to understand in the wired world. In a normal collision, electrical signals distort other electrical signals making them unreadable. It's all electromagnetics, I guess.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it.

[Guspaz]

I meant the pennies as parts of a packet (Individual bits even) and the random number of pennies as a whole packet.

The same thing happens in the wired as wireless world; two people transmitting at the same time causes an overlapping signal like two people talking at the same time, and nobody can understand what is being said by either party.

Wireless networks do incorporate several techniques to avoid or even prevent collisions, but that just stops them from happening; you still can't have more than one transmission at a time.

Muahahahaha

[donleyp]

Now, I will be able to hijack my neighbor's high speed connection ten times as fast!

Re:Muahahahaha

[woodlouse_man]

But there's only so much pr0n you can download

Re:Muahahahaha

[cshark]

Exactly, and when the Florida police come knocking at your door, you'll be just as happy about it. Heh heh.

Re:Muahahahaha

[TheSneak]

And be arrested 10 times as fast!

Re:Muahahahaha

['nother poster]

And it will keep that bandwith maxed for YEARS!

Re:Muahahahaha

[tomhudson]

But there's only so much pr0n you can download

Haven't you heard - pr0n is subject to Moore's *Other* Law, where the doubling period is 18 weeks, not 18 months.

Also, pr0n expands to exceed all available hard disk space.

Re:Muahahahaha

[burtdub]

Now hackers will be able to hijack idiot's credit card numbers ten times as fast!

Re:Muahahahaha

[VolciMaster]

and ten times as far...

Re:Muahahahaha

[hexalite]

I plan to ping flood my whole neighbourhood offline, those wireless B modems won't stand a chance!

Re:Muahahahaha

[Mysticalfruit]

Now they just have to also include an trunking protocol so I can take all 10 of my neighbors totally open AP's and aggregate them into one monster connection.

Granted it'll exceed all bandwidth available on the PCI bus, but damn, they'll be alot of data queued up on the card!

Re:Muahahahaha

[ryusen]

don't say such blasphemy! besides, i think the increase in volume of porn is more than enough to make up for the increase in bandwidth.

Re:Muahahahaha

[saider]

You forget that human copulation is the best documented behavior. Plenty of data out there for everyone.

Time?

[kidtux1]

Any idea how long we will have to wait before we start seeing these products? Although if you are just browsing the net with your wifi, i don't see how having such a fast connection will help you since your dsl or cable connection will be much slower.

Re:Time?

[Taevin]

Well, it would be good for transferring files between PCs on your home network (although my backbone is still just 100Mbps...). But really, I think this would be even better for setting up ubiquitous wireless all over a town or an even larger area. I mean how cool would it be to have that much bandwidth all the time, wherever you are, wirelessly!

Re:Time?

['nother poster]

Just get several internet connections and agregate the bandwidth. Then give me your SSID and WEP keys. ;)

Re:Time?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's true that you don't have anywhere close to even a 54 Mbps pipe to the Internet; the usefulness of these technologies come in being able to wirelessly deploy applications that require high bandwidth LANs. The first application that comes to my mind is wirelessly streaming HDTV from an HD MythTV box, something that I've been tinkering with for the last few months, but wireless technology isn't up to it, especially if both boxes are wireless (I've since attached the MythTV box to the AP over a cable, but it seriously restricts placement of both devices).

This is probably tied into the whole media convergence whatever, but more normal users are likely to benefit from increased speeds for network file shares and might be able to create/buy something like a DVD jukebox media server (54 Mbps is adequate for this, but of course the more users, you start running into problems).

Also, the range is much better. Ranges of hundreds of meters are regularly claimed and demonstrated in some of the early gear. While certainly not up to the level of WiMAX (which is an infrastructure-level technology, designed to be deployed at this point as a last mile solution, not a LAN solution), it's a big improvement over existing wireless LAN technology. It'll probably have a price tag to match in the early going. :-)

Expect early products to appear maybe later this year, with practical products probably not appearing for another 6-12 months later.

Re:Time?

[stinerman]

802.11-based technologies are not designed for WAN deployment. 802.11b is 11mbps and 802.11a/g are both 54mbps. Neither of these come close to what most people get via their WAN connection. These are LAN products which will make them competitive with Gigabit ethernet, not DSL or Cable.

Re:Time?

[Taevin]

Maybe this is what you meant (although if it is, you worded it in an odd way), but actually what most people get from their WAN connection doesn't come close to their wireless speed. My cable connection is 6Mbps downstream which is significantly less than even a .11b connection speed (assuming full speed). And on my .11g router, I consistantly get speeds of at least 42Mbps, 7 times the speed of my cable modem (down of course... the up is pathetic).

Re:Time?

[Anonymous Coward]

exactly, that is why I still tell friends and relatives to get 802.11b and to hell with the worthless g stuff.

your internet is 10 times slower than the b, so why the hell do you want to have 1000BT to the cablemodem? only morons that think the go fast wings are an improvment.

Re:Time?

[hb253]

What kind of WAN speeds does your company have? Mine uses either T1 or T3, which is what, 1.5 Mbps and 45 Mbps, respectively? Network is 100 Mbps or 1 Gbps.

My Cablevision home internet is 10 Mbps down/1 Mbps up.

In both cases, the limiting factor is the Internet/WAN connection, not the LAN/network.

Re:Time?

[stinerman]

That is exactly what I meant. And I always seem to word things in odd ways. ;-)

Re:Time?

[LV-427]

Pre-N hardware is available now from manufacturers such as Belkin

Re:Time?

[stinerman]

Whoops ... I meant to say that the WAN is always the limiting factor. Of course, your LAN bandwidth will always be more than your WAN/MAN bandwidth.

Re:Time?

['nother poster]

For your relatives and friends that may be true. Not for everyone though. Not by a longshot. You obviously don't have anyone doing video editing or music production like I do as a hobby. I have 4 PCs and an AIX box hooked up in the basement plus 802.11g for the laptops. Believe me 802.11g is a godsend for me. Not everybody uses their home network for just surfing the web.

Re:Time?

[gbjbaanb]

ah yes, but everyone thinks this - that its all about your connection to the internet via your slow modem.

I think something like this will be very useful for companies that use wireless for their LAN. After all, there are a lot of buildings that have old wires that will not even take 100Mbps speeds, or that do not have cable outlets in the desired locations - and for these, going wireless is a very inexpensive way to network the company. And seeing as I'm now you're talking about LAN speeds, 54Mbps is reasonably slow by todays standards, so its not surprising that faster is desired.

So, if you have 1 person using wireless to surf the web and download pr0n, yes, this kind of stuff is no big deal at all. If you're using it as a shared network, it is a big deal.

Re:Time?

[Kryptkrwlr_XTC]

Honestly, for me I could care less about the speed as the frequency. Current 802.11g works on the 2.4gHz frequency. I believe that the 802.11n spec works on 5gHz frequency. No more cordless phones degrading my signal! w00t!

Re:Time?

[Vlatro]

Expect to see a push around november from retailers and hardware manufacturers. These will still be the Pre-N but hopefully a little closer to what the actual standard will be, and in cool new packaging. Prices will most likely be between $79.00 - $149.00 US. The actual N specification will I'm sure will take longer. There is still a huge market for present wireless technology, and manufacturers will want to deplete as much of the existing stock as possible before pushing something new. Give it a year to 18 months before you see anything worth buying. The real advantage of 802.11n is (pending finalization) the lower power requirements of the receivers. That means it can be integrated into handheld devices (PalmPilot, Cell Phones, etc.) in much the way the original 802.11b standard was, and could used for large file transfer (from shorter than normal distances). Have you ever tried using bluetooth to send MP3s to your phone. It takes forever. Of course this who knows what the final specification might give us. But before running off to shell out $100+ on this, consider a few things. Unless you are transferring multiple gigabyte files, existing wireless networks will usually work just the same. A faster wireless router will do little more than speed up large file transfers. Bandwidth is not the bottelneck in 802.11 wireless. Latency is the real killer. On-Line gaming, real time video streaming, and other realtime applications suffer heavily under wireless connections. So if your a gamer, running a personal webserver, serving a networked database, or using audio / video conferencing software... Wireless in any form is not for you, stick with GbEthernet. It's faster, cheaper, and running the cable throughout your home (professionally through the wall with outlets, not run across the floor) will bring up the value of your house. Any idiot can do it, so why not. I run all of my computers and my X-box off a good physical network, and only use wireless for my notebook.

Re:Time?

[TheScorpion420]

Unless you purchase one of those new fandangled phones that operate in the 4.8GHz spectrum. Then your screwed again.

Re:Time?

[littleman42]

Not everyone uses their home network for just browsing the internet. I use mine primarily for gaming.

Re:Time?

[Lord Kestrel]

Some of us are lucky enough to work for a company with a pair of OC-3s to teh intarweb, soon to be swapped out for a pair of OC-12s. When your website if making in excess of $3mil US a day though, it's worth the expense :)

Re:Time?

[cthulhu11]

There are actually people and especially companies who -- believe it or not -- have more than one computer, with one or more acting as something called a "file server". There are also people who might on occasion have the nerve to go more than 30 feet from an AP. In the wireless arena, greater peak speed has often correlated with greater workable distance. At my new place, where cable and DSL aren't available, this tech might just allow me to be able to afford a DS1 by sharing it with neighbors wirelessly -- which would be a hell of a lot less hassle than digging trenches through the forest to lay cable.

Wow...

[Anonymous Coward]

Companies choose to work with each other instead of against? Now friend...that's news!

Moderator..

[Anonymous Coward]

Arrest that man!

No, that's wrong.

[Khakionion]

If Blu-Ray versus HD-DVD has taught us anything, it's obviously better to have an overzealous, point-missing war over two completely incompatible formats.

Re:No, that's wrong.

[ergo98]

If Blu-Ray versus HD-DVD has taught us anything, it's obviously better to have an overzealous, point-missing war over two completely incompatible formats.

Yes, it probably is. It's called capitalism, and it's a sort of technology Darwinism where hopefully the best of the best survive. Yes, there are exceptions, but I prefer it over some central government resolution to declare whatever half-assed proposal comes first the standard.

Let them fight it out for a while, undoubtedly stealing the best of each other's ideas, and then introduce something great.

Re:No, that's wrong.

[flithm]

It's called capitalism, and it's a sort of technology Darwinism where hopefully the best of the best survive. Yes, there are exceptions, but I prefer it over some central government resolution to declare whatever half-assed proposal comes first the standard.

You're incredibly naive if you still believe this.

It's a great theory, but the problem with the pseudo-democratic capitalism that survives here in North America is that the outcome rarely represents the interests of consumers.

The best product has an exactly equal amount of opportunity to flourish as the worst product. This is determined, not by consumer choice, but by politicians, marketers, and other large and powerful bodies.

The problem with our so-called "capitalism" is exactly this: we let the corporations tell us what we need. They have their psychologist designed advertising campaigns, their hushed up negative testing results (which are often spun into something positive), and their huge political clout which can sometimes force desicions on us without us even realizing it.

Having said that, I must say I too prefer this form of capitalism over some totalitarian government run market.

The interesting thing is that if we were able to elect a dictator that was perfectly good and uncorruptable (maybe a computer? maybe a genetically designed person?) I can see this approach being vastly superior to the one we currently employ.

But until that day, at least our current system gives us the impression that we have some freedom of choice, and the ability to influence the market with those choices. Reality may dictate otherwise, but this is still much better than having some easily corruptable system where, like you said, we end up with "whatever half-assed proposal comes first the standard," or worse we end up with whatever suits the interests of the government the best.

Also, about the idea of electing a computer or genetically engineered person as a dictator... I can't say I think this is the best idea either (evne if it were feasable). There's plenty of potential for badness there too :).

Anyway... all I was trying to say was: don't kid yourself. Our current market system almost never gives us the best product as the dominant one.

This is especially true in the tech sector. Examples: Windows (first OS/2, now OSX), x86 (anything else), Dell (anything else), Beta (VHS) , Qwerty, etc.

Basically every innovation brought to market is plagued by this!

Think about it this way. Who's likely going to control the adoption of HD or Blu-ray? Probably it's going to be the pornography producers. They have typically been the early adopters of these types of technology, and generally drive the markets choice.

Now, wouldn't it be nice if the pornographers had the consumers best interests at heart? But let's be realistic, they don't. They're going to pick the one that makes them the most money. And if some conglomerate decides to pull some underhanded dealings with the porn producers we're basically stuck with whatever happens.

It seems like we might be able to revolt, but we can't! A true democracy relies on a completely educated public. Certainly this does not exist, even if it COULD exist (which it can't, there's just too much to know).

Joe six-pack will rush out and buy whatever it takes to play Debbie Does Seabiscuit IV. As long as it has zoom, one handed operation, multiple camera angles, and costs less than a certain threshold percentage of the mean gross income, he'll buy it.

In the end though, does it really matter?

n?

[should_be_linear]

How does this "n" letter compares to WiMAX?

Re:n?

[Khakionion]

WiMax is 802.16. It's not intended for single household use, like 802.11.

Re:n?

[Nos.]

WiMax and Wi-Fi, generally speaking, have two different goals. WiFi is meant for your home or LAN. WiMax on the other hand is aimed more at replacing your broadband connection. WiMax is looking to have a range of 60 miles or more, and provide speeds up to 70Mpbs. WiFi will more than likely be able to out perform WiMax as far as bandwidth, but without special antennaes and line of sight, won't be able to touch WiMax as far as range.

Re:n?

[superpulpsicle]

Even I am alittle fuzzy on all this wireless overlapping.

Let's say you have 20 people on different wireless networks and they all overlap. And they are all on the same subnet for example 192.168.1.x and they are all going to the same gateway.

It's one thing to steal your neighbors connection. Is another when everybody comes to a deadlock because the network is jammed!? Isn't this the eventual outcome cause there is not enough private subnets out there? Just asking...

Re:n?

[Nos.]

Yes and no. Yes, there are only so many subnets out there. However, there are a LOT, and I do mean a LOT of frequencies and keys. So for example, you and I could be next door neighbors, both running 192.168.1.x as you said, but with different encryption on our routers and different frequencies, we wouldn't even know the other existed.

In the past...

[MaestroSartori]

...three apartments I've lived in, we've struggled to get over 20Mbps with 100Mbps-rated gear. Does this mean we'll actually get 100Mbps from this, or will they somehow be able to avoid whatever's causing current-gen wireless gear to degrade when going through anything thicker than a fibreboard partition? :(

Re:In the past...

[megla]

Rewriting the laws of physics might proove a little tricky...

Re:In the past...

[TripMaster Monkey]

"I cannae change the laws of physics, Captain..."

James Doohan, AKA "Scotty"

Re:In the past...

[Malc]

Are you talking wireless or not? I was under the impression that the fastest wireless spec for consumers is 54Mbs (802.11g and 802.11a), and that the higher speed equipment was using proprietary extensions, e.g. Linksys' SpeedBooster. If that's the case, I can't help feeling a little sceptical about the speed claims, especially considering how long it took bog-standard 802.11g equipment from different manufacturers to interoperate properly. In fact, the wireless in my Dell M60 (Dell TrueMobile 1400, or something like that) has only just started working properly with my Linksys gear (it had massive latency problems) with the latest set of drivers I downloaded recently, although it was fine with SMC access point. It seems to me that the manufacturers were more interested in speed inflation (like Intel and GHz wars) than actually delivering something reliable.

Re:In the past...

[DigiShaman]

Because you live in an appartment, it's very common to see quite a few wireless routers online around you. For example, I can detect at least eight. As such, you will have a very high SNR (Signal to Noise Ratio). The best thing you can do at this point is to set your router to a different channel.

Channels go from 1 through 11. The only channels that do not overlap are 1, 6, and 11. Basically, pick any one of the channels farthest away possible near you for the best signal.

Re:In the past...

[eht]

Many of the wireless products out there allow you to use two different frequencies to double pump the wireless connection.

Here is one of Dlink's offering called AirPlusXtremeG

Re:In the past...

[Malc]

"With the D-Link 108G enhancement, the DWL-2100AP can achieve wireless speeds up to 15x in a pure D-Link 108G environment"

I thought we liked standards around here! ;)

Sounds like a recipe for disaster (or at least low speed wireless). And I'm also curious where they get that 15x from: "now capable of delivering transfer rates up to 15x faster than the standard 802.11b ". 802.11b is 11Mbs. 11 x 15 = 165Mbs. 108/15 = 7.2... so are they admitting that their 802.11b equipment only delivers 65% thoughput? Extrapolating, can one only expect 71Mbs from their 108Mbs proprietary spec equipment? 65% would also be inline with what I've seen from my Linksys and SMC 802.11g devices (I easily hit 35Mbs throughput.)

Re:In the past...

[Slack3r78]

Not sure on the math for actual throughput, but D-Link's Extreme G products are based on the Atheros chipset, which I've had great luck with on the client side. The routers tend to have rebooting issues. Netgear and Airlink's 108Mbs routers are based on the exact same logic board, and inherit many of the same problems. But again, just as an 802.11G card, Atheros is hard to beat, and for a long time they were the only a/b/g solution out there.

Re:In the past...

[Anonymous Coward]

The radio frequncy used determines the amount of attenuation or signal loss through various building materials due mainily to their geometry versus wavelength of the signal
    it seems we need a multiband wireless network not 2 but many selectable wavelengths , then we can chose one that works best with the materials where the network will be used.
For example:
  Some materials pass 2 GHz 802.11 while others reflect these frequencies , its just a matter of electromagnetic compatibilty using many bands gives us this .

Re:In the past...

[Listen Up]

It's not the technology which is unreliable, but the software drivers which are unreliable. For example, I was getting extremely frustrated that my Linksys 802.11g network was not working for shit in my apartment building (WPC54G and WRT54G). Even 15ft away my Windows XP laptop would lose signal, take 5-10 minutes to log back on (I use WPA), and generally pick up and drop the connection seemingly at random. I went through every knowledge base article on Linksys website, downloaded all the latest BIOS's for the router, and was literally 30 seconds from throwing the whole fucking network out the window. Then I bought an Apple iBook with built-in wireless (Airport) for my fiancee. I plugged in the iBook, logged into Apple OS X 10.4, and the first window that greeted me was the network password for WPA for my wireless network (and there are about 5 wireless networks in my apartment building). I typed in the password and the network just came up and started working, nothing else involved. HOLY F'ING SHIT, YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME. In the months we have had the iBook, we have never lost a signal nor had a failed sign-on. My Windows XP laptop is still acting the same way it was acting before. Un-f'ing believable.
 
Moral of the story is that the networking is not always to blame.

Re:In the past...

[Listen Up]

Buy a wireless signal booster for ~$50 and stop complaining.
 
Also, the latest wireless standard is 54Mbps, not 100Mbps.

Re:In the past...

[thue]

you will have a very high SNR (Signal to Noise Ratio)

That should be low SNR I think.

Re:In the past...

[beavioso]

Yes high noise low signal... low snr. High SNR good, low SNR bad.

Re:In the past...

[Malc]

Does your XP laptop have a Texas Instruments CardBus controller? There's a known issue that matches your description that I suffered with too. They used to have a beta release of some drivers that was supposed to fix it. They didn't make a proper release of them, and now it's hard to find them as there are multiple revisions of the hardware and they tend to hide drivers for older versions. Depending on your security configuration, Windows XP has an issue where it frequently drops the connection, but I don't remember the details.

Re:In the past...

[__aaijsn7246]

From wikipedia:

Channels and international compatibility

802.11b and 802.11g divide the spectrum into 14 overlapping, staggered channels whose center frequencies are 5 megahertz (MHz) apart. It is common to hear that channels 1, 6 and 11 (and, if available in the regulatory domain, channel 14) do not overlap and those channels (or other sets with similar gaps) can be used such that multiple networks can operate in close proximity without interfering with each other, but this statement is somewhat over-simplified. The 802.11b and 802.11g standards do not specify the width of a channel. Rather, they specify the center frequency of the channel and a spectral mask for that channel. The spectral mask for 802.11b requires that the signal be at least 30 dB down from its peak energy at ±11 MHz from the center frequency and at least 50 dB down from its peak energy at ±22 MHz from the center frequency.

Since the spectral mask only defines power output restrictions up to ±22 MHz from the center frequency, some people assume that the channel's energy doesn't extend any further than that, but in reality, it does. In fact, if the transmitter is sufficiently powerful, the signal can be quite strong even beyond the ±22 MHz point. Therefore, it is incorrect to say that channels 1, 6, and 11 do not overlap. It is more correct to say that, given the separation between channels 1, 6, and 11, the signal on any channel should be sufficiently attenuated to minimally interfere with a transmitter on any other channel. But this is not universally true. For example, a powerful transmitter on channel 1 can easily overwhelm a weaker transmitter on e.g. channel 6. In one lab test, throughput on a file transfer on channel 11 decreased slightly when a similar transfer began on channel 1, indicating that even channels 1 and 11 can interfere with each other a little bit.

Although the statement that channels 1, 6, and 11 are "non-overlapping" is incomplete, the 1, 6, 11 guideline has merit. If transmitters are closer together than channels 1, 6, and 11 (e.g. 1, 4, 7, and 10), overlap between the channels will probably cause unacceptable degradation of signal quality and throughput.

Distance!

[PhYrE2k2]

I'd rather have distance over speed... like the article a couple days about about 125mi WiFi. Has a lot more purpose, as anything important and needing the speed isn't going to be going over Wireless.

-M

Re:Distance!

[Ingolfke]

I agree, speed is nice, but at this point, I'm more interested in WiMax (omnidirectional distance) and roaming Wi-Fi (Wi-Fi in your car?). Those technologies will revolutionize the way we use Wi-Fi and the Internet.. then speed and security will be a top issue again.

Re:Distance!

[tomhudson]

I'd rather have distance over speed.

Aw, come on ... how much pr0n do you think a carrier pigeon can carry, anyway?

Re:Distance!

[Kafka_Canada]

Heh, funniest sig I've ever seen on Slashdot.

Re:Distance!

[Guysmiley777]

Yes, 125 mile WiFi would be great. Hauling around a 10 foot satellite dish however would not. Nor would having to hire someone to sit at your router and realign the base station dish every time you move.

Re:Distance!

[piquadratCH]

Actually, 802.11n devices can use their array of 3 or more antennas (MIMO, Multiple Input Multiple Output) to detect the general direction of their counterparts and send more energy in that direction. It gets nowhere near your 125 miles, but it's quite an improvement over a/b/g-devices.

Re:Distance!

[clk23]

Anything important and needing the speed hasn't had any other option. I for one hope the progression of wireless standards provide such an option and fling us further forward on the path to a cableless society.

Bring on the 802.11n and then show me the 802.11Tesla.

what will the long term health risks be

[Exter-C]

Running speeds like that over wireless is going to raise many questions like.

What are the long term health risks going to be?.

At what point will the governing bodies start to enforce legislation regarding notifications and health warnings that are seen on many mobile phone products already in many parts of the world.

Re:what will the long term health risks be

[Taevin]

Maybe I'm just not thinking enough about this, but why would faster speeds be any more dangerous than existing wireless technology?

Re:what will the long term health risks be

[Ingolfke]

I, being the proactive person that I am, have placed two warning signs in my front yard. One states, that the unencrypted open wireless broadband access point in my house is not for public use, the other warns that the radiation emitted by said device may cause cancer, impotence, hunger, pregnancy, and/or death, BEWARE!

Re:what will the long term health risks be

[oringo]

Non-sense! I live right next to a cellphone tower and use my microwave oven with the door open all the time! So far only my dog has died, and my fish is blind. But I'm perfectly healthy and am going to live another 100 years because of the advancement of medical technology. Argh! gotta stop and take care of my bleeding nose.

Re:what will the long term health risks be

[Exter-C]

Well there are more questions that can be asked. If mobile phone can cause health problems "possibly". and high power microwave is known to cause problems. Then why would there be no issues with current technology letalone higher speed specifications.

Re:what will the long term health risks be

[Sir Phobos8]

Yes, but how often are you holding your wireless router to your head?

Re:what will the long term health risks be

[hab136]

Well there are more questions that can be asked. If mobile phone can cause health problems "possibly". and high power microwave is known to cause problems. Then why would there be no issues with current technology letalone higher speed specifications.

Yes, high power microwaves cause this health problem called "cooking".

Low power gear like cell phones WiFi haven't been shown to cause problems.

For the people that think "OMG the radiation!" think of it this way - you have no problems with a 1 degree change in temperature. You'd have a big problem with a 100 degree in temperature. Likewise, some radiation is ok (and most gear puts out *less* than the Earth naturally radiates!). A lot will cause you problems.

Re:what will the long term health risks be

[databyss]

They're about as dangerous as all the AM/FM signals beaming through your head at the moment...

Re:what will the long term health risks be

[pete6677]

Because it's 540 Mbps, dude! That's enough speed to knock you down and cause you to break something!

Re:what will the long term health risks be

[Anonymous Coward]

So between my blackberry "naturally radiating me" since it is possibly at a level equal to or lower than earth, my additional cell phone "naturally radiating me", and now my 802.11 card on my laptop sitting on my lap "naturally radiating me", all of this must be safe and "haven't been shown to cause problems" even when you factor in the exposure to all of these technologies in a typical persons work day?
I'm not busting your balls, just recognizing the fact that anything in moderation "probably" will not hurt, as the body is amazingly resiliant, but lets also apply a bit if common sense instead of blind trust to technology that still is not mature.

Re:what will the long term health risks be

[hab136]

So between my blackberry "naturally radiating me" since it is possibly at a level equal to or lower than earth, my additional cell phone "naturally radiating me", and now my 802.11 card on my laptop sitting on my lap "naturally radiating me", all of this must be safe and "haven't been shown to cause problems" even when you factor in the exposure to all of these technologies in a typical persons work day?

Right.

I'm not busting your balls, just recognizing the fact that anything in moderation "probably" will not hurt, as the body is amazingly resiliant, but lets also apply a bit if common sense instead of blind trust to technology that still is not mature.

Radar (microwave) was used in WW2. We've been studying EMF since at least then. How mature do you want our understanding of the electromagnetic spectrum to be?

50 years of science is not "blind trust".

Yes, we should still look for problems, and continue to study the effects. But I wouldn't freak out about new technology being suddenly more dangerous than old, as your original post seemed to be doing.

Re:what will the long term health risks be

[nmos]

So that's where those voices are coming from. I wonder what station it is that keeps broacasting KILL, KILL, KILL over and over anyway.

Re:what will the long term health risks be

[zCyl]

For the people that think "OMG the radiation!" think of it this way - you have no problems with a 1 degree change in temperature. You'd have a big problem with a 100 degree in temperature. Likewise, some radiation is ok

Sure, if you assume the human body is built like a thermometer, but that would be a ridiculously naive assumption. Studies have demonstrated that microwave power levels which don't cause significant heating still cause significant and harmful effects, some by directly damaging DNA in a non-ionizing fashion, and some by disrupting lipid membranes in the body, such as found in the blood brain barrier.

There are far more effects of radiation on complex and polarized molecules than you get from thermal models or billiard ball simplifications of radiation.

and most gear puts out *less* than the Earth naturally radiates

Only if you assume all wavelengths are identical to the human body, which is not at all the case. Every wavelength is absorbed by different parts of the body in different amounts, and every wavelength interacts in different ways with different molecules.

Re:what will the long term health risks be

[databyss]

Probably the nearest rap station.

Re:what will the long term health risks be

[cfpresley]

Actually a recent study has shown that cellular RF has caused microbubbles to form in the lenses of eyes. http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000363052092/ so taking the news that 30-45% of medical studies are flawed, you have a 30% to 45% chance of your cell phones making you blind. And I always thought it was self abuse...

Re:what will the long term health risks be

[Dun Malg]

So between my blackberry "naturally radiating me" since it is possibly at a level equal to or lower than earth, my additional cell phone "naturally radiating me", and now my 802.11 card on my laptop sitting on my lap "naturally radiating me", all of this must be safe and "haven't been shown to cause problems" even when you factor in the exposure to all of these technologies in a typical persons work day? I'm not busting your balls, just recognizing the fact that anything in moderation "probably" will not hurt, as the body is amazingly resiliant, but lets also apply a bit if common sense instead of blind trust to technology that still is not mature.

Indeed, let's apply some common sense. Microwaves are non-ionizing radiation. Damage from ionizing radiation (far UV, X-rays, gamma rays) is cumulative because when it hits cells, it causes damage. The more ionizing radiation, the more damage. Microwaves are too large to cause direct cellular damage. They can only cause damage indirectly, by heating water molecules. The more microwave radiation, the more heat. Your cells can handle quite a bit of heating before suffering damage, and in fact you will undoubtedly feel the heating long before it has a chance to burn you.

Security, please

[RevengeOfPoopJuggler]

I'd be more interested in more security than faster speeds. I could download so much more porn if my neighbors weren't stealing my bandwidth...

Re:Security, please

[op12]

I hope they don't add security. I couldn't download so much porn if I wasn't stealing my neighbor's......wait a second!

Re:Security, please

[Taevin]

Have you considered turning off SSID broadcast and turning on WEP? Even security as basic as that should be more than enough to stop your neighbors, and it's built right in to your wireless router.

Re:Security, please

[Anonymous Coward]

Modern access points have WPA.. I'm sure this will have the same thing or something better. AFAIK, thats secure.

Re:Security, please

[vertinox]

I could download so much more porn if my neighbors weren't stealing my bandwidth...

Have you ever considered hacking your wireless router's DNS table so that all URLs point to goatse?

Re:Security, please

[Anonymous Coward]

That plus MAC address filtering and its more trouble than its worth for most hackers.

Re:Security, please

[Jeff Hornby]

Have you considered sniffing their packets to get their porn?

(And on a side note, is "sniffing their packets" just the wrong words to use in this situation)?

Re:Security, please

[gbjbaanb]

Turn on the MAC address filtering - it shoud be easy to do (my netgear router shows a list of attached devices, select the wireless adapters listed that you know are yours (I only have one listed, even my neighbours don't like me :( ), click the 'add to allowed list' and I'm done. i don't even have to know what the MAC address is).

If you don't turn on WEP then people can sniff your traffic, but they can't do much with your connection. Turn on WEP if you want privacy as well.

Re:Security, please

[Anonymous Coward]

It's called WPA. And it'll stop 99.9999999999% of the people out there. use a long key, use AES, and I don't forsee too many people breaking in just to use your access point.

Ooops, sorry, you were just trolling.

Re:Security, please

[xjerky]

MAC filtering is almost pointless though. With passive scanning, a person can still see what MAC addresses are xfreing "allowed" traffic and use that to spoof their way onto your LAN.
Still not a bad idea to place another obstacle, but don't think that automatically protects you.
WPA2 looks fairly robust enough to keep people out though.

Re:Security, please

[Anonymous Coward]

Either your neighbors work for the CIA, or you are an idiot?

Re:Security, please

[Anonymous Coward]

but don't think that automatically protects you.

Well no shit ,captain obvious. Re-read my post. I said that it makes it more trouble than its worth for most hackers.
You gonna tell me that having identical MACs on the same network doesn't present problems?
Filtered MACs(with or without authentication ala publicIP/Nocat) PLUS turn off SSID broadcasting PLUS 128 bit WEP is pretty much due dilligence for anyone wanting to use WiFi.

Would be nice if more routers put a limit to challenge-repsonses on WEP authentication so as not to allow a hacker to pull a couple somewhat easily crackable gigs.

Network Burn

[Doc Ruby]

We know that some EM radiation does cause cancer and other health problems. Which bands and frequencies, targeted for use by telecom (licensed or not), actually are hazardous? And how long before they're used by telecom providers struggling to deploy bandwidth?

Re:Network Burn

[Anonymous Coward]

What kind of a question is this? ALL frequencies are hazardous, in varying degrees, with both known and as yet undiscovered effects. Everything in the world (and out of it) is hazardous to some degree. Where do you want to draw the line?

Or do you think it's somehow 100% safe if someone else makes those tricky decisions for you?

Re:Network Burn

[Doc Ruby]

We're talking about practical applications. For example, if some telecom company put up 100MW 2.4GHz towers, we'd all fry - the water in our bodies and the air around us would heat up, and worse. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the thresholds of safety in the bands that telecom companies are targeting. Rather than today's version of that thinking, which amounts to "we don't know, it looks safe", until enough people get hurt that someone does public tests proving the frequency/amplitude unsafe, and we have to retrofit.

So that's gently clarifying the point, giving you the benefit of the doubt. But you really don't deserve it, based on your final snotty statement. You're just a techoworshipping loser. When the telcos put up those towers, they're making those decisions for me. That's why I pay for the FCC with my taxes: to keep those corporations in check, so they don't fry us with their ambitious profit-extraction technologies. Damn it, what is the cancer growing on the brains of fascists like you, that questions about product safety trigger your obnoxious corporate zombie hands towards your keyboards? Maybe it's already too late for you, even with today's relatively low radiation levels.

Re:Network Burn

[building_970]

There are two issues you probably have to worry about.

One band of harmful EM radiation is the ionizing radiation, high energy photons that are X-rays and gamma rays. Naturally, 802.11n won't be these.

UV rays are harmful at high enough intensities. Microwaves, which cause water molecules to resonate and therefore heat up, are around the 2 GHz frequency of 802.11.

However, you must remember that the effects rely entirely on the power output. If our wireless transmitters had a power output of 3000 W like our microwave ovens, then yes we should be worried. However, the tiny milliwatt outputs aren't an issue.

There have been worries that low frequency (radio wave) RF can induce microamp currents in cells, killing them, but this theory is unsubstantiated.

Re:Network Burn

[Anonymous Coward]

What you're asking for, which is what ignorant consumers keep asking for, is a magic list, a sort of 21st century talisman. It does not exist, but since you insist on having one, here's one that's as good as any other

Monkeys: Bad
Hats: Good, so long as they are no more than 0.23m in any direction
Jello: Good, except raspberry
Stereo headphones: Bad
the letter 'F': Good

Now run along and live by these entirely arbitrary rules. Or, next time, ask a sensible question.

Re:Network Burn

[Doc Ruby]

What are the power outputs in the radio bands that are harmful? Right now we've got telecom companies pouring money into DSP to make low-power signals useable. But it's a lot cheaper, and more effective, to crank up the power (at the towers, at least), at the cost of buying new regulations through Congress. So what is the level between the current, assumedly safe, outputs, and the obviously dangerous high outputs, where the outputs will eventually cross the line into hazardous?

Re:Network Burn

[Slashcrap]

We know that some EM radiation does cause cancer and other health problems.

EM radiation covers a vast range of frequencies and some of it does cause health problems. But you're clearly talking about cell phones, power lines, WiFi etc..

In which case would you be kind enough to cite studies which unambiguously show that these cause cancer or any other health problems?

Or are you the sort of person that buys special crystals to stop your cell phone upsetting your chakras and giving you cancer?

Re:Network Burn

[Doc Ruby]

Ironclad rule: Anonymous corporate apologist Cowards = Bad

Here's a different question: what's your address, so I can erect a tower next door, with which I can experiment with various frequencies and power outputs? Rather than rely on the mewling bullshit sniggering out of your mouth, I'll just listen for the howls of pain from your lesions. Or just the crackling of your flesh.

Please just tell me that you live in White Sands, NM, and your skull is already crammed with its maximum capacity of radiation tumors. I'll be willing to ignore your further remarks, as redundant exposure data.

Re:Network Burn

[Doc Ruby]

No, I'm the kind of person who says that you'll have health problems if you remove your microwave oven door, and watch your popcorn popping. I'm also the kind of person who calls idiots in denial assholes. Stick your crystal up your chakra.

Re:Network Burn

[Anonymous Coward]

The power level doesn't matter. The exposure is what does. Obviously, you're gonna get a whole lot more exposure closer to a source than further away. The exposure limits vary depending on frequency. Most people in the US go by the exposure limits put forth in OET 65 (PDF). The harmful exposure limits are probably much higher.

Re:Network Burn

[Doc Ruby]

In point of fact, it's the amount of power, in a given spectrum, on an exposed area of the body, for a length of time, that causes damage. For a given frequency (or band) that can damage or alter tissue, the product of power, area and duration is directly proportional to the probability of tissue interactions that make people sick or wounded. So crank up any of the 3 factors, and that compensates for reducing any of the others.

Also, I'm not talking about what we're currently putting out, within the current legal exposure limits. I'm talking about what the higher thresholds actually are, beyond which humans are damaged. Because I expect the legal limits to rise, regardless of the risk. And I want to see just how far they can get cranked up before they start causing real damage.

Re:Network Burn

[Dun Malg]

Well, probably the best place to start is with the FCC RF Safety FAQ. The FCC bases their safety limits on recommendations from the IEEE and National Council on Radiation Protection & Measurements. The thing is, even if you have decided upon a specific power level beyond which it's "unsafe", figuring your exposure is complicated without carrying around and constantly monitoring an RF meter (might as well wear a tinfoil hat if you're gonna do that). If you want to check a specific antenna and have all the appropriate stats, you can calculate your actual exposure.

If you're looking for the short answer without having to do excessive research and wade through the crackpot stuff:

-Ionizing radiation: far ultraviolet, x-rays, gamma rays (wavelength 280nm or less )
Wavelength is small enough to cause cellular damage from free radicals. Definitely proven to cause cancer.

-microwave radiation: wavelength 30cm(1GHZ) to 1mm(300GHZ)
Not small enough to cause direct cellular damage (i.e. not ionizing). Exposure at high levels can cause burns. Microwaves pose a particular danger to the eyes, parts of which are much more sensitive to "cooking effects" than the skin and have no surface nerves to warn of overexposure. Cell phones and WAPs do not put out enough power to qualify as dangerous in this regard.

No conclusive link has been demonstrated between non-ionizing radiation and cancer.

Re:Network Burn

[Ex-MislTech]

Making rude references to a persons post is just ur attempt to
lift your insecure ego out of the mud it wallows in .

http://www.mercola.com/2001/jun/27/mobile_phones.h tm

There has been some concern, even by the makers of cell phones .

Peace,
Ex-MislTech

No this means..

[Cumstien]

No this means you can join another class action suit against D-Link for promissing theoretical speeds and failing to account for the inherent overhead with wireless such as encryption and authentication. Bullshit indeed. Now where did I put my attorney?

Re:No this means..

[MindStalker]

Actually you can get their advertised speeds as their equipment uses several channels at one and combines them. Problem is this assumes noone else is using those channels for their own wireless around you. This is unlikly in most urban environments.

Hell Has Definitly Frozen Over

[skatephat420]

Hell has definitly frozen over... Not only has Apple released a multi-buttoned mouse, tech companies are actually realizing that working together is better than working against each other. Two miracles in one day,who would have thought?

Re:Hell Has Definitly Frozen Over

[Overzeetop]

All I can say is that if I don't see a dupe on /., I'm going to start running for the hills. The hair is already starting to stand up on the back of my neck, it's so creepy.

Re:Hell Has Definitly Frozen Over

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, the Eagles got back together to make that Album, you know.

Re:Hell Has Definitly Frozen Over

[Anonymous Coward]

... Not only has Apple released a multi-buttoned mouse, tech companies are actually realizing that working together is better than working against each other.

Apple released a multi-buttoned mouse without multiple buttons and tech companies _announced_ that they are going to work together.

I guess Hell is unchanged.

I'm going to wait it out

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm holding out for 802.11z. That will be the fastest.

Re:I'm going to wait it out

[maxwell demon]

No, it will be followed by 802.11{

Why isn't there 540Mbs Ethernet ?

[Anonymous Coward]

How on earth can wifi be faster than cables ? I want faster cables not faster wifi (which I never use and hopefully never will)

Re:Why isn't there 540Mbs Ethernet ?

[Anonymous Coward]

You know you can do gigabit over ethernet right?

Re:Why isn't there 540Mbs Ethernet ?

[Overzeetop]

Get yourself a gigbit e-net switch and cards. Buy.com has an 8-port for about $60 after rebate right now (SMC, just set mine up). Runs 1000Mb/s over cat5(e). I can't even saturate my Gb net at home with an 8-drive FW tower (limited by drive speed and/or FW bandwidth of 400Mb/s/channel) between my server and my laptop.

However, it would be nice not to have to be plugged into the cables when I want to edit video on the server. Right now, the connection (54Mb) is dicey enough and slow enough (10-15Mb max real throughput, down hill, with the wind behind me) that its impractical.

Re:Why isn't there 540Mbs Ethernet ?

[PIBM]

I guess you still have a P3-500 ? If you've bought a recent computer, you should have noticed that many boards offer what is called gigabit ethernet - offering 1000Mbps. While this is good, many motherboard even go to offer 2 connections like those. If you want more, you can get dedicated hardware that could support up to 10Gbps for an "acceptable" price.

Also, have you ever seen an optical fiber cable ? Those got the records for the speed ;)

Re:Why isn't there 540Mbs Ethernet ?

[TripMaster Monkey]

Actually, 10-gigabit ethernet has been ratified since 2002.

Re:Why isn't there 540Mbs Ethernet ?

[Malc]

I would be willing to bet that it's your laptop that is the bottleneck in that equation and that all the other stuff you wrote was an attempt to boast about the gear that you have in your home.

Re:Why isn't there 540Mbs Ethernet ?

[pinkocommie]

802.11g sucks for anything that is remotely video related. I've been wanting to run gigabit for a while but my issue is that my computers are in different rooms and i'm not good with my hands, have no idea how to run copper through the walls (townhouse) and what chance i have of screwing stuff up big time :-D. Is your equipment all in the same location? if not how did you manage the wiring?

Re:Why isn't there 540Mbs Ethernet ?

[HermanAB]

because there is 1Gbps ethernet?

Re:Why isn't there 540Mbs Ethernet ?

[Anonymous Coward]

from the wiki:

Unlike earlier Ethernet systems, 10-gigabit Ethernet (for any nontrivial distance) is so far based entirely on the use of optical fibre connections. However, the IEEE is developing a standard for 10-gigabit Ethernet over twisted pairs (10GBASE-T), using Cat-6 or Cat-7 cable and planned for approval in 2006.

Re:Why isn't there 540Mbs Ethernet ?

[frankie]

Go to Loews (or your favorite locally-owned hardware store) and buy a stud/wire finder. It takes out a whole lot of guesswork.

Re:Why isn't there 540Mbs Ethernet ?

[Anonymous Coward]

How on earth can wifi be faster than cables ?

It's a trick, they are counting the use of all channels at once for a single connection (which will be a supported mode) to get the max. In reality, you'll get horrible performace based on 540Mbs, but good performance compared to 802.11g. Reminds me of the USB 2.0 High-Speed, Full-Speed bs.

Re:Why isn't there 540Mbs Ethernet ?

[TwoPumpChump]

Runs 1000Mb/s over cat5(e)

That's great as long as you keep the cat5(e) cables relatively short - oh, in my experience, 30 feet or less (despite claims to the contrary, I won't bore you with the how's and why's) As soon as I get around to it I'm going to recable my house with cat6.

Re:Why isn't there 540Mbs Ethernet ?

[Overzeetop]

No, really, he was concerned that 540Mb wireless would leave wired behind. I was pointing out he had nothing to fear.

If I'd wanted to boast, I'd tell you that my laptop is a Presicion M70 with a PM-1.86Ghz processor, 2GB of DDR2 ram, an intel 1Gb enet card, an nVidia QuadraFX go 1400 with 256MB ram, a 100GB HD, and a 1920x1200 screen. The non-raided discs in the FW tower (a cheapie FW400 tower box I bought for $300 and populated with IDE HDs) are the bottleneck, or possibly the FW bus itself, depending on the content.

The server is a Dell SC400 with a few extra sticks of RAM, an ATI 9600 and an ATI HDTV wonder. Nothing there to brag about.

As for the fellow concerned that wire length is a factor, my main link is about 40', home crimped at both ends. Since I've gotten sustained transfers of large (1GB files) at 28MB/s, I'm guessing that the FW bus is saturated. I haven't tried a ramdisk to ramdisk memory transfer, so I can't be sure.

Re:Why isn't there 540Mbs Ethernet ?

[Overzeetop]

Previous house: new, custom design, prewired 9 ways to Sunday.

Current House: 1960s ranch. Server is in the unfinished part of the basement. I snaked wire from the server area, across the unfinshed ceiling to an A/C duct that was put in a couple of years before I moved in. that goes all the way to the attic. AFter that I just found the room I wanted and the location on the wall and matching top plate (look under the insulation in the attic). For ease of fishing, drill a 1/2" hole the top plate and an inch hole in the drywall (put a low voltage old-work, open backed box in if you'll cover it up with a plate later). Low-tech fish method: Drop one end of a beaded chain down into the wall and tape the top part of the chain to your cable. Beaded chain is the stuff you'll see on old pull-chain ceiling lights - looks like a lot o little (1/8") metal beads. Take a magnet - the kind on a telescoping rod work well - and stick it in the hole you drilled in the wall and wave it around 'til you hit the beaded chain. Pull the chain out, and the cable will follow (if you taped it securely).

Re:Why isn't there 540Mbs Ethernet ?

[Malc]

I guess I misinterpreted (sp?) because I didn't get that impression about his concerns. Sorry. Most people can't even saturate 100Mbs ethernet. When the hard drive bottlenecks the throughput, they'll still have a lot to spare. Really, how many people have RAID 0+1 (or is 1+0?) at home on a bus that can put that much through?

Heh: that's screen's nothing to boast about. I have an M60 and if it's anything like mine it's utter shit. I have to run it at 1280x800 to avoid eye strain and headaches. Several other people I work with have complained of similar symptoms. I hope they've increased the size in the M70s because otherwise that's too many pixels in too small an area for most people. Maybe your eye sight is better... but will it be for long? ;)

Re:Why isn't there 540Mbs Ethernet ?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Most people can't even saturate 100Mbs ethernet..."

100 megabits a second = 12.5 megabytes a second. I can get 11 megabytes per second transfers over ethernet with no problem, and get more like 25 doing disk to disk. So I'm pretty sure I'm saturating it. This is using fairly old kit, 1 GHz Duron built out of whatever junk was lying around at the time, no RAID or SCSI or anything special.
Saturating gigabit though? Not on my machine.

Re:Why isn't there 540Mbs Ethernet ?

[Overzeetop]

Well, I press my nose up against the screen (use a d/view stand) so it's not that bad. Also, I do mostly cad work, so the extra pixels means more real estate and better accuracy in the drawing area. I usually use a larger zoom for text editing...10 pt in Word at 100% is a bit small.

I'll admit that some things don't run as fast as they should, but for the most part, the laptop is every bit as fast as the 2.8G desktop it replaced, and I can take everything with me.

Re:Why isn't there 540Mbs Ethernet ?

[Malc]

Yeah, dock it and use an external KVM and other than the lower noise level, it's hard to tell that you're working on a laptop rather than desktop. Very nice.

Better information:

[dostick]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11#802.11n

Re:This is the dumbest post I have ever posted

[Mantus]

Apparently you have never transfered a DVD image across a wireless netowrk.

Believe it or not people ran networks long before widespread internet use.

And in other news...

[woodlouse_man]

Microsoft has announced that "All that Longhorn stuff - it's just one big joke. We're licensing Apple's OSX for Intel"

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were last seen checking into a room at a nearby Holiday Inn for some "one-to-one interfacing"

Uplink Speed

[Blindman]

This may be fine and good for some high-end applications, but I don't believe that a lot of places have upgraded to Gigabit Ethernet yet. For the home user whose main activity would be surfing the internet anywhere in the house, communicating with the router 10 time faster than 802.11g won't make the internet any faster.

I'm all in favor of the advance of technology, but the only use I can find for this is faster streaming of video on a local basis once Gigabit ethernet becomes the standard. For right now, the 540 Mb/s is not going to matter much over 100 Mb/s wires.

Re:Uplink Speed

[pinkocommie]

Running multiple HDTV/SDTV streams? I've currently got a mediacenter setup with multiple tuners, would be awesome if I could add some more tuners and then stream it wirelessly to all rooms in the house without having to run more copper. I'm sure there are thousands of other uses for the bandwidth that other slashdotters can come up with.

Re:Uplink Speed

[Silver Sloth]

There's a lot more to the world than the home user. I'm busy putting together the wireless office where all users will have wireless laptops and for me wireless bandwidth is a big issue.

Oh, and incidentally I stream MP3s arround my home to a number of netgear MP101s and I notice the performance suffering when I'm downloading bittorrents or when ny son is playing on-line games so maybe I'd like more bandwidth at home too. Yes - I'm at the technically savvy end of the market but much more domestic data streaming is coming real soon and it's difficult to convince my wife that all these cables are required when wireless is available.

Re:Uplink Speed

[Mechcozmo]

Our home has a number of GigE computers. The PowerMac line of computers has had GigE for quite some time, and we have a couple in the house. As well as a few Windows boxes. But it is enough that GigE is something to possibly rewire the house with. All the holes have been made anyway for 10/100 wire... just a weekend of running the cable.

Re:Uplink Speed

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of my computers have GigE as well.. problem is with everyone buying wireless, GigE switches have not come down in price as quickly. I'm waiting for an 8 port switch from a name brand vendor for under 80 dollars!

Re:Uplink Speed

[MonkeyCookie]

I would personally use such a fast wireless network to stream movies and video around the house. My dream is to have a MythTV and file servers in the garage with nano-ITX or mini-ITX clients hooked up to the various TVs.

That would allow me to store DVD images, MPs, recorded TV shows, and software CD images on the servers, and make use of them from any computer or media center in the house.

Gigabit ethernet would be perfect for this, but installation would be incredibly difficult, if not impossible. My attic is so small and cramped that it's almost impossible to move around up there, and installing ethernet in the walls would be a monumental task.

So this 802.11i would give me a nice network and save me a huge amount of cost, time, and effort, since I wouldn't have to do wire installation.

Re:Uplink Speed

[sevinkey]

Applications I thought of off the top of my head when I first saw it:

1. Go get a wireless media center extender in every room of my house.
2. Start using file servers more for my documents

but I'm sure this will open up the door to some more interesting stuff in the future. 540MB/s will streaming 100 HDTV movies simultaneously. Why would we want that is a question I can't answer at the moment.

Re:Uplink Speed

[Anonymous Coward]

I could be wrong, but I thought DVD quality video only goes up to about 10 Mbps. 802.11b won't cut it at that bitrate, but 802.11g should.

Re:Uplink Speed

[Anonymous Coward]

Done. And it even supports jumbo frames!

Temperature?

[haakondahl]

IANA...whatever...but at what point do the little antennae heat up?
Clippy: "Looks like you're trying to remove a flaming WiFi card..."
Combine this with a cantenna, and roast pigeons as they fly by.

Re:Temperature?

[Anonymous Coward]

faster speeds != higher transmit power

you don't need higher transmit power to acheive faster transfer speeds. It's all in the modulation type and data encoding.

Re:Temperature?

[haakondahl]

Okay, thanks for the reminder about duty cycle, etc... But still, assuming we're transmitting far more transitions/time, then is there a miniscule inductive heating effect? Granted, we're not roasting anything here, but if you vary the current (& the field) more rapidly, more frequently... what? No? nevermind...

Re:Temperature?

[Anonymous Coward]

Channel information capacity depends on the S/N ratio and bandwidth. You can fit more information in a channel by either raising the S/N ratio (raising power, using directional antennas) or using more bandwidth.

Re:Temperature?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a fscking moron.

Mod parent -1 Technologically Incompetant.

Re:Temperature?

[haakondahl]

Actually, Anonymous-Coward-who-amazingly-demands-moderation, morons don't usually fsck. You're just under thirty and bitter.

Me and me doggy...

[sirkarmabad]

Me and me doggy has manyies talento's incliding ice fishing. We go drinkin on the weekends that don't end in why. Me and me doggy has manyies talento's incliding ice fishing. We go drinkin on the weekends that don't end in why. Me and me doggy has manyies talento's incliding ice fishing. We go drinkin on the weekends that don't end in why. Me and me doggy has manyies talento's incliding ice fishing. We go drinkin on the weekends that don't end in why.

Channel Use

[CaptBubba]

I wish they would focus on somehow fixing the conjestion of the current 2.4GHz spectrum. Having three non-overlapping channels (in the US) is simply not enough. Of course, you won't even have that because some company will come out with an "OMG-1Gb-WIRELESS!!" type AP which will use the whole damn spectrum.

From my apartment I can pick up no less than 20 wireless networks using netstumbler. I'd be much more interested in having 11 or 54 megabit wireless, but a whole bunch of non-overlapping channels.

Re:Channel Use

[40000]

I think a standard for a _lower_ bitrate wireless system would be just as useful. I know 802.11b can fall back to 2 meg under difficult conditions but the RF design is for a 22 MHz bandwidth, a proper 2 meg system with a 5 MHz RF bandwidth should overlap no channels and receive less interference.
Or how about a super-narrowband wireless networking standard? Like 33 - 128kbit in something like a 100 KHz RF bandwidth, for links where there's no line of sight but any connection is better than nothing.

What happened to H I J K L & M?

[gone.fishing]

What happened to H,I,J,K,L,& M?

Seems like a waste of alphabet to me. And what happens when we get to Z? Will there then be Aa Ab,Ac and so on through Zz?

Re:What happened to H I J K L & M?

[pinkocommie]

Wiki on 802.11i they're already available and you probably are using it or its subset WPA :)

Re:What happened to H I J K L & M?

[majest!k]

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11 :

IEEE 802.11 - The original 1 Mbit/s and 2 Mbit/s, 2.4 GHz RF and IR standard
IEEE 802.11a - 54 Mbit/s, 5 GHz standard (1999, shipping products in 2001)
IEEE 802.11b - Enhancements to 802.11 to support 5.5 and 11 Mbit/s (1999)
IEEE 802.11d - International (country-to-country) roaming extensions
IEEE 802.11e - Enhancements: QoS, including packet bursting
IEEE 802.11F - Inter-Access Point Protocol (IAPP)
IEEE 802.11g - 54 Mbit/s, 2.4 GHz standard (backwards compatible with b) (2003)
IEEE 802.11h - 5 GHz spectrum, Dynamic Channel/Frequency Selection (DCS/DFS) and Transmit Power Control (TPC) for European compatibility
IEEE 802.11i (ratified 24 June 2004) - Enhanced security
IEEE 802.11j - Extensions for Japan
IEEE 802.11k - Radio resource measurement enhancements
IEEE 802.11n - Higher throughput improvements
IEEE 802.11p - WAVE - Wireless Access for the Vehicular Environment (such as ambulances and passenger cars)
IEEE 802.11r - Fast roaming
IEEE 802.11s - Wireless mesh networking
IEEE 802.11T - Wireless Performance Prediction (WPP) - test methods and metrics
IEEE 802.11u - Interworking with non-802 networks (e.g., cellular)
IEEE 802.11v - Wireless network management
IEEE 802.11w - Protected Management Frames

Note that 802.11x is not a standard or task group. Rather, it is a colloquial term used to denote any current or future 802.11 standard, in cases where further precision is not necessary.

Re:What happened to H I J K L & M?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, but after Zz, the world is doomed.

Re:What happened to H I J K L & M?

[Russ Steffen]

Also note there is an 802.1x (note missing digit) working group on port based security that figures prominently in wireless standards.

Antennas

[MECC]

Both proposals are based on the Multiple Input, Multiple Output (MIMO) many-antennae technique and Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) to boost data throughput rates using two- and four-antenna arrays

Is one of the antennas propellor shaped - placed atop beannie?

WiFi is very low power.

[raygundan]

The legal limit for radiated power from wifi devices is something like 100mW. Your cell phone radiates many times that, and your microwave goes several orders of magnitude above that.

Additionally, "speed" has little to do with how much radiation you will be getting. Picture yourself talking slowly on a CB radio. Now talk twice as fast. Are you somehow making that radio transmit more power by talking faster? Nope... you're just cramming more information into the same radio signal.

Consider also that "faster" digital cell phones use significantly less power than their old analog cousins.

I'm not saying there are no issues with cell phones, etc... the jury is still out on that. But the risks from wifi are trivial in comparison to those from cell phones, and raising the speed doesn't do much to the output power.

Re:WiFi is very low power.

[Stelminator]

I believe the limit for effective radiated power is higher than that for 2.4Ghz devices. It seems like that (100mW) might be about right for ~5Ghz stuff. Also, I know that with a WRT54G and sveasoft firmware, you can push the stock hardware to 251mW, and they claim that is well below the 36dBm limit.

sveasoft faq on the subject some site that seemed to have relevant stuff on the FCC regs

Distance and Speed Issues

[TheStonepedo]

Until the strength of the signal is boosted significantly, consumers will not be happy with an improvement in the 802.11 range of wireless networks. If you can't install repeaters in places where they will both have good signal and not be eyesores, you might as well have cables. In my experience, both the overhead for sending data wirelessly and the distance from the base combine to cut speeds drastically. Until these issues are settled, gigabit ethernet with well-hidden wires seems a better option.

Which is more viable for most people?

[swb]

Given the density of most cities, it seems like decent (eg, > 256k) speed long-haul wireless, especially ad-hoc unlicensed, would be less meaningful than high-speed 'standard distance' wireless.

I just don't see a scheme where 10k people in 5 mi^2 can all have 1Mbps wireless without using way more spectrum than will ever be allocated to unlicensed consumer products.

I agree that a decent speed implementation of a wide area wireless would be nice, but it's a carrier tech, not a consumer one.

Re:Which is more viable for most people?

[Wesley Felter]

I just don't see a scheme where 10k people in 5 mi^2 can all have 1Mbps wireless without using way more spectrum than will ever be allocated to unlicensed consumer products.

You never know; there is 7GHz of unlicensed spectrum in the 60GHz band. That stuff is years away from commercialization, though.

Re:Which is more viable for most people?

[PhYrE2k2]

Personally, my wireless can't make it to the other side of the house. I've also done coroporate implementations where wireless needs to be placed a little too regularly, versus say a couple APs per hotel or large office building.

Distance is key- as long as it's adjustable.

-M

Re:Which is more viable for most people?

[swb]

Even assuming 1 bit per Hz of spectrum (eg, 7Gbits), that's still only 700kbps for 10k people, and 10k people is a cushy number relative to very high density locations like Manhattan.

Of course this doesn't take into account oversubscription, but it also doesn't take into account signalling overhead nor loss of bandwidth due to interference (which would likely be huge if it was a consumer technology).

Re:Which is more viable for most people?

[Wesley Felter]

You're assuming no spatial reuse, which would be possible with mesh or really small cells. But yeah, you can't put 20 pounds of data in a 10-pound bag.

Call me old fashioned

[Anonymous Coward]

But for home networking, I see wifi as a lazy resort to set up a proper network.
In some cases, it works great, because there are old houses and buildings you cant run new wire through at all.
But, there are a lot of newer houses, especially in california that have the jacks for home networking set up. So, they install wifi instead and dont put in encryption, thus keeping open vulnerable access points. Ends up being a waste.
That and wifi is a waste. Why? first, for home networking, best to use wires for personal and private files, IMHO, wifi is best served as a way for laptops or mobile technology to access files or the internet on the go. But for pc's, it should be used.
Then the main point. wifi never utilizes the full bandwidth it advertises. because every packet has to carry extra transmission data, It ends up using about half, if lucky. then with interference and any obstacles in the way of the transmission, you're lucky if you'll even get 25% of the speed.
So really this 540 mbps thing is really bringing wifi up to about 100 mbps of real throughput. The rest is wasted or used for authentication and SSID.
Just set up home networking if you have the jacks, or, if you know how to do it, put the jacks in the wall and wire up your house.

Alright!

[Darth_brooks]

In a few years we'll have wireless that's almost half as fast as gigabit ethernet! Wooohooo!

I love hearing the PHB's squaking about how "Pretty soon we won't need to bother cabling buildings." My last employer (http://www.wcccd.edu/) thought that MAC-Whitelisted, unencrypted, 802.11b was the wave of the future. Yeah, try pushing an image to 20 clients over that connection. Sigh, Wayne County.

Wireless won't replace cabling in the near future. It's nice for a general connection to the web, but not for heavy-duty data movement.

Wireless speeds are inflated

[SigNick]

Simple, .b and .g have massive overhead (and the promised 11&54Mbps are just lies). Judging from the past signs you can hope to get 40-50Mbps from a "100 Mbps" wireless connection, less with security features enabled and/or more than 20 meters away.

Note that the Ethernet speeds of 10/100/1000Mbps ARE true speeds you can except to achieve with modern hardware.

Re:Wireless speeds are inflated

[hb253]

Actually, if I remember correctly, the max you can get with wired ethernet is 80% of the nominal speed.

Re:Wireless speeds are inflated

[Detritus]

On a relatively quiet Ethernet, you can get very close to wire speed. Many of the early reports of limited speed on Ethernet were due to bugs and deficiencies in hardware and systems software.

Re:Wireless speeds are inflated

[Torne]

This is true, but the quoted speed is not the nominal speed. 100BaseTX uses a 5-bit Manchester code to send 4 bits of information, which means that yes, it only gets 80% of the actual line speed. However, the actual line speed is 125Mbit/s - thus, you really do potentially get 100Mbit/s. With fully switched ethernet, on decent, fast switches, you can attain well over 95% of that speed in actual use. My server hits a sustained 96.5Mbit/s when I pull files off it over ftp, for example.

how about distance instead of datarate

[cats-paw]

These standards committees really need to focus on distance before datarate.

I just can't wait to get 540Mbits/s @ 5m line-of-sight...

Hahaha! Still not!

[euxneks]

Man, Steve Jobs must be stubborn as hell!

It's still not (really) a two button mouse!!

Re:Hahaha! Still not!

[Anonymous Coward]

What in the world does this have to do with wireless networking?

Re:Hahaha! Still not!

[reddeno]

You seem to be lost. That party is down the hall and to your right.

Re:Hahaha! Still not!

[Mechcozmo]

How the hell did this get modded up?

They don't really go ~through~ your head...

[TheEternalVortex]

Since, after all, they are wider than your head.

More Noise!

[Gates82]

Great I can just imagine trying to get more then one of these to broadcast and receive in the same airspace. Currently the 104mbps routers broadcast accross 9 or so channels, meaning that there is great interference accross normal usable channels.

It has always bothered me (living in an apartment complex) when you see three access points on channel 11, all interfering with each other. And then you see a Router on 6, but it is broadcasting at 104 mbps and taking up channels 2-10. It is very rude. I wish that manufacures would just stick to three channels 1, 6, 11. Then there would be no interferance, and stop selling juiced up routers that break these standards and kill all of the channels.

(rant) I'm done (/rant)

--
So who is hotter? Ali or Ali's sister?

Speed == Distance

[Wesley Felter]

A technology that provides more gain can be used for higher speed at equal distance or greater distance at equal speed.

In Other News

[Master of Transhuman]

Carrier pigeons have been bred which fly at Mach 3 and carry twenty pounds of letters!

Seriously, what's the range of 802.11n - ten inches?

What's the medical risk of the 1 mega-watt this is likely to require to get any range at this speed?

When it gets close to ratification - and Belkin is making a "pre-" version available at CompUSA - let me know.

Re:In Other News

[Anonymous Coward]

>Carrier pigeons have been bred which fly at Mach 3 and carry twenty pounds of letters!

Cool!

>Seriously, what's the range of 802.11n - ten inches?

around 8x more than b and g

>What's the medical risk of the 1 mega-watt this is likely to require to get any range at this speed?

who talked about using more transmit power?

>
When it gets close to ratification - and Belkin is making a "pre-" version available at CompUSA - let me know.

Belkin does sell a pre-n version at bestbuy, don't know about compUSA...

Re:In Other News

[WonderSnatch]

Sure enough, Belkin does make some "pre-n" stuff:

Wireless Pre-N Router

Brett

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Is this the same definition of "mbps" as in the cu

[melted]

Is this the same definition of "mbps" as in the current standard? Because if it is, you'll be lucky to get 54 mbps out of this gizmo, just like right now you often get only about 12 mbps out of a "54 mbps" wireless connection (as in 1MB/sec).

Re:Is this the same definition of "mbps" as in the

[Anne Thwacks]

That's because your "bits" are too large. Perhaps you should not reply to all that spam!

802.11n? What does the "n" stand for?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll give you one guess.

Thou hath blasphemied this FREE LESBIAN PORN POST!

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at how this Lesbian uses her Bible

To confirm you're not a script,
please type the word in this image: dolphinsex

Mesh networking

[Sheepdot]

802.11s stands to be the next big thing, IMHO. A P2P wireless Internet brings so much more potential and allows "blanketing" of entire areas with much better throughput. I'd be interested in seeing IEEE settle on a standard for that, since there are like 5 competiting protocols for it right now.

documentation?

[Anonymous Coward]

just looking for any kind of documentation whatsoever on your rather rudely stated points.
you seem pretty sure-- i'd love to be convinced- can you give us at least one link to some science?
and could you try to keep it down on the insults? i'm not the guy you were responding to, but as we mostly all learned in the 3rd grade, insults are the domain of those lacking in logic.

Re:documentation?

[Doc Ruby]

Yeah, I'm rude to Anonymous jerk Cowards who send me obnoxious comments instead of some helpful science. Anonymous Coward, you want science, you can look in the other replies to my questions which actually do have some helpful info in them. Don't expect me to lift a finger to do anything to enlighten an Anonymous Coward, with insults of their own - making your 3rd grade experience appear somewhat incomplete.

Re:Is this the same definition of "mbps" as in the

[Freeptop]

The medium does get 54mbps, in total, raw bits. The problem, however, is that there is protocol overhead and latency to deal with that makes your data throughput something around 12mbps.

You can't just send an Ethernet II or 802.3 frame out onto the air and expect it to get where you want it to go without additional header information. Data collisions also become more interesting when not every node can see every other node's traffic (which is different from wired traffic), which means that there needs to be additional protocol overhead to deal with such occurrences.

802.11n will also have a lower data throughput than the raw medium bandwidth. It will still be significantly faster than 802.11g, though.

off topic

[TheScorpion420]

I always wondered why, other than to discourage serving of anything off cable, why they give such a low upstream. The limit for a coax cable with the current technology is approx. 38 mb/s down, and 10 mb/s up. That is almost a 4:1 ratio, why is your speed not the same. Your getting about a 24:1 ratio on your upstream(assuming 256kbit, which is what it is here). That is an insane ratio. I don't really know how much of a headache it would be for the cable companies to open up the upstream a little, even 1 mbit would be sufficient. With 38 mb of band and 7 users using all of their bandwidth at once you've oversold the line by 4 mbit. But those same users only consume 1.7 mbit out of 10. That is 110% overutilization of the downstream and 17% utilization of the upstream, where is all this excess upstream usage going?

Security?

[zardie]

Will there be mandatory security for this stuff? eg, the AP won't work until you configure it sort-of-thing.

I'm sick and tired of people who buy wireless routers "just in case" when they don't even use the wireless features. Sometimes wireless routers are even cheaper than the wired-only versions so people install them without disabling the wireless features.

Re:Security?

[TheOneBiscuit]

They will never be shipped with full security enabled. This will make it harder for everyday users to get working straight out of the box, so users will therefore by less secure brands because they work 'better'. Also, the less security there is, the less support calls. So unfortunatly, it makes good financial sense to ship these units with security disabled.

This is so slow

[herve661]

I have 850 Mbs DSL speed, and 1.5 Gbs WiFi speed.

Yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

But can you do it at mach 1.

Let the Truth be Told

[str8lazy]

People have to understand that this technology will be pretty much useless, unless they can develop faster processors and better computers in general before this technology comes out. The real throughput on this crap will probably be 350Mbps, providing that you have a top of the line machine and all the options that allow for this speed to occur are actually on. Someone mentioned something about electricty effecting people from powering this of something. Something about 1megawatt or something. First you should do a little bit of research, its the RF(Radio Frequencies) that may or may not effect people in the long run. The only way that you can truely be effected by the RF is to have you head places on the router day and night for about 10-15 yrs. Then it is possible, but highly unlikely that you can develop some type or cancer or something from this. Hell if you do develop something it will probably be genetic anyway. Someone else mentioned mandatory security. Security for wireless devices now-a-days comes standard. Its up to the losers... I mean users to enable the WEP (Wireless Encryption Protection) and protect themselves for bandwidth leeches and etc... People may not understand that radio waves are used to produce wireless signals. If you want a good connection you are going to have to make yourself have a good connection. And by that I mean you need to take the steps necessary to ensure that you are getting what you paid for. Make sure that you enable all of the settings that allow for the most effecient and protected wireless connection on the router. Then you should adjust you hardware according to the environment, there are materials that will absorb radio waves and distort them. Try to make your router and wireless device have as clear a path as you can between them to ensure a quality connection. Then I could go on and on but I am sure that most people know this. I could go into algorithms and stuff but i'd rather not. Basically what I want to say is that someone need to develop a better way to package information and then you will have a faster connection, what they are doing right now is pretty much making the highway bigger, and what I am saying is basically someone needs to find a way to make the cars smaller :) I hope that this little bit that I said was education for some and not an utter waste of my time. Oh yes, and please excuse the typing errors if any are present.

I understand all of this

[melted]

However, I'd rather have them specify the _real_ data throughput instead of some arbitrary number that can not be measured. If it's 30Mbps, I'm fine with that as long as it's reasonably close to that in the real life.

Re:I understand all of this

[Freeptop]

That can be easier said than done, since the "real" throughput greatly depends on the number of clients associated to the same access point, the number of access points on the same channel, the amount of traffic going to each client, etc, etc.

Also, what counts as "real" throughput? Can we count the overhead of an FTP or HTTP transfer, or do we have to discount those overheads as well? (In which case your "100Mbps Ethernet" isn't 100Mbps, either).

You ask that the industry specifies something that can be measured instead of an arbitrary number - they did. The throughput of the medium is actually quantified and measured in a standard way. Attempting to determine just what "real" data throughput is would be arbitrary, and not necessarily something that could actually be measured reliably.

Yeah right

[melted]

That's why I can only get 1MB/s out of my wireless connection instead of 6.75MB/s. That's quite a bit of "overhead", don't you think?

Re:Yeah right

[Freeptop]

That sounds more environmental than overhead. I've generally gotten at least half the medium bandwidth in practice, once all overhead, including FTP protocol overhead, is factored in. That is, I'll get 5Mbps from a 11Mbps radio, and around 30+Mbps for a 54Mbps radio. If you are only getting 8Mbps from a 54 Mbps radio, then I suggest you do the following:
1) change to a different radio channel. There is a good chance you are getting a lot of interference in your area from other devices in the 2.4GHz spectrum (assuming you are using 802.11g, and not 802.11a). Don't pick the immediate next channel - channels 1, 6 and 11 are completely orthogonal and do not interfere with each other, but channel 3, for example, can get interference from channels 1-6.
2) Find a position for your Access Point so that you can get a better line-of-sight between your client and the AP's antenna. Also make sure you aren't too far away from the AP - the AP will back off to a lower bandwidth if the signal quality is less, and you may be encountering that if your client is too far from the AP, or there are too many walls or metal objects between your AP and your client.
3) Make sure the antenna on your AP is pointing upwards. The signal actually broadcasts strongest from the standard antennae shipped with APs in a toroidal pattern. The signal above and below the antenna is much weaker than to the sides.
4) Make sure nobody is piggy-backing on your AP and using up your wireless bandwidth without your knowledge. I recommend WPA2 with AES encryption. 802.1x Authentication would be preferred, but tends to not be practical for home use, but PSK should be sufficient for most needs. Granted, this will reduce your bandwidth a bit, as encryption takes processing cycles, but it won't cut you down to 8Mbps!

If none of those help, then you can try getting a better antenna, or possibly switching to another brand's AP - software overhead in processing can make a difference as well, and some vendor's APs are better than others. I'd make a recommendation, but I work in the industry, and am, therefore, quite biased ;)

802.11pre-n

[Quincysan]

I have 802.11 pre-n w/ 108 Mb, it's as nice as I'll need for a couple years, that's for sure.

Re:Hahaha! Still not! (Off Topic, completely)

[ph43drus]

Holy shit! Frasca, is that you?

If so, it's Nicholas from Marc's class back at Oly... perhaps you won't remember me, heh.

Anyway, cheers to a small world...

Yes, you did manage to find me slumming on slashdot. (I didn't reply, because by the time I actually looked back at my comment history and noticed the reply, the thread was closed. I'm terrible about following up. So, instead, I've just been stalking you via your user profile.)

How's things?

Take care. ;)

Jeff