Eh what's agood wireless system?


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Oct 31, 2003
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Still deciding which to get.

Anyone care to share their views?

Saw one at Sitex. D-Link Router and PCI Card Wireless-G @ 88MBPS selling @ only $206.00!! Any comments?

How about other brands? Any good? Oh yes, those without a wireless system please stay away.........or else...... :flame:

thanks :p
 

Don't be totally taken in by those claims (22Mbps! 54Mbps! 88Mbps! 108Mbps!!) as the speeds are quite hard/difficult/impossible to achieve or sustain.

And depending on what you intend to setup (home network with 1-3 PCs, SOHO with 5-6 PCs) you may not want to go with those non-IEEE-standard wireless implementations as each individual manufacturer will have "tweaks" to enable their equipment (and only theirs) to interoperate at the higher-rated speeds.

And there is still an issue to inter-mixing different flavors of wireless signals eg. 802.11b, 802.11g share the same spectrum at 2.4Ghz. Your 802.11g (22Mbps) card will not work at 22Mbps if there is a 802.11b card present as both will then revert to the common denominator of 11mbps for max interoperability (believe there is some work going on to ensure the 802.11b/g can work together at the respective speeds with some tweaks on the Access Point).

Bottom line - I have a 802.11b ADSL router/access point combo at home and happily surfing away from the living room while watching The Bachelor.
 

Darren said:
Don't be totally taken in by those claims (22Mbps! 54Mbps! 88Mbps! 108Mbps!!) as the speeds are quite hard/difficult/impossible to achieve or sustain.

And depending on what you intend to setup (home network with 1-3 PCs, SOHO with 5-6 PCs) you may not want to go with those non-IEEE-standard wireless implementations as each individual manufacturer will have "tweaks" to enable their equipment (and only theirs) to interoperate at the higher-rated speeds.

And there is still an issue to inter-mixing different flavors of wireless signals eg. 802.11b, 802.11g share the same spectrum at 2.4Ghz. Your 802.11g (22Mbps) card will not work at 22Mbps if there is a 802.11b card present as both will then revert to the common denominator of 11mbps for max interoperability (believe there is some work going on to ensure the 802.11b/g can work together at the respective speeds with some tweaks on the Access Point).

Bottom line - I have a 802.11b ADSL router/access point combo at home and happily surfing away from the living room while watching The Bachelor.

Ok understand what you are trying to say. I have a 2 desktops and a laptop at home. Well my brother is using one and my sis is using another. I think you must be using Netgear? 2 in 1 router? Still not sure which to go for.

Just asking as really want to know as there is too many brands out there. I know brands like Linksys and Netgear are reputable brands in the market for home usage. But what about others? How is the connection speed like? Is it the same as wired? I am using a 512K speed @ the moment.

Hope you can assist me on this.............. :p
 

lets think it through slowly.

wired (UTP) - either 10Mbps or 100 Mbps
wired (BNC) - 10Mbps
wireless - 11 Mbps

not much speed difference between wired or wireless, unless u invested in Fast ethernet. And this speed only refers to the devices(router, PCs, ...) within your home network. Anyway, the pros and cons between wired/wireless is not in the speed. Its in security, guess which one is easier to wiretap??

Your internet connection, as you said, only 512Kbps, is a fraction of 11Mbps, where do u think the bottleneck is?? at the slowest link right?? For sure, your home network (LAN) speed will always be faster than your internet access. so really no need to pull your hair out worrying so much about the speed to choose.

Basically u are asking the wrong questions. its like people asking about number of megapixels on the digial cameras, when we all know the image quality is in the CCD technology, not in the number of megapixels. Give u 5 or 6 MP but lousy colours, the pic still sucks.

As someone has pointed out, make sure the wireless AP/router supports standards, where all your hardware can inter-operate. For now, make sure it has security features, which means WEP until something better come along.

And, the most important thing, the router is reliable. I know some broadband router reboots every so often. Or some wireless AP stops operating after some time and need to be rebooted. Trust me, these things are way more important/frustrating than speed.

netgear, linksys, dlink are mostly reliable. sometimes certain models will have problem, but are usually fixed with new firmware upgrades.
 

hangdog said:
lets think it through slowly.

wired (UTP) - either 10Mbps or 100 Mbps
wired (BNC) - 10Mbps
wireless - 11 Mbps

not much speed difference between wired or wireless, unless u invested in Fast ethernet. And this speed only refers to the devices(router, PCs, ...) within your home network. Anyway, the pros and cons between wired/wireless is not in the speed. Its in security, guess which one is easier to wiretap??

Your internet connection, as you said, only 512Kbps, is a fraction of 11Mbps, where do u think the bottleneck is?? at the slowest link right?? For sure, your home network (LAN) speed will always be faster than your internet access. so really no need to pull your hair out worrying so much about the speed to choose.

Basically u are asking the wrong questions. its like people asking about number of megapixels on the digial cameras, when we all know the image quality is in the CCD technology, not in the number of megapixels. Give u 5 or 6 MP but lousy colours, the pic still sucks.

As someone has pointed out, make sure the wireless AP/router supports standards, where all your hardware can inter-operate. For now, make sure it has security features, which means WEP until something better come along.

And, the most important thing, the router is reliable. I know some broadband router reboots every so often. Or some wireless AP stops operating after some time and need to be rebooted. Trust me, these things are way more important/frustrating than speed.

netgear, linksys, dlink are mostly reliable. sometimes certain models will have problem, but are usually fixed with new firmware upgrades.

Thank you for your wisdom...... :lovegrin:
 

I recommend Compex. Low priced, very good, and with a big userbase in HWZ forums, so you'll never find a lack of helpful people on any problems. Their package is damn cheap too, so get it@
 

Singapore local broadband plan is 512k..unless u go leasezzz
 

if i'm on cable (starhub)
can i go wireless as well? have 2 laptops and 2 slow computers??
can someone recommend a cheap wireless so that all 4 computers can get connected? or that's not possible?
any other alternatives?

Thanks.

oh.. and make it simply for a it moron like me thanks. where to buy what to buy. thanks
 

you can go wireless, no matter what kind of connection you have. (Although you might legally be violating your internet connection contract when u connect more than 1 device to internet for your plan, but isn't everyone doing it?? hehe). Technically, no problem.

When you want to go wireless, all your devices might need to have wireless capabilities, thats kinda expensive. So plan carefully. Suggestion, only buy wireless cards for your laptops (mobiles devices), and stick to ethernet (UTP cables) for your PCs (that is not moving around so much).

Basically, you would want to have a wireless access point cum broadband router (aka 2-in-1). You will want it to have a few ethernet ports as well, to connect those devices that are still using network cables.

most of the brands mentioned above have cheap and good models that meets the above criteria. As someone have mentioned, hardwarezone have lots more information about such things. Really should check that out.

Same as for cameras, try to go with tried-and-tested products. Generally, not very safe to be guinea pigs trying out latest models that just launched and nobody (or few people) using yet.
 

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