Wireless Networking Card Connection?

Question

I don’t really need a new networking card anymore, I actually have several spare ones lying around the house, but one thing I was always seemly curious about is that brands of these cards are typically always marketing them as "FAST, BLAZING SPEEDS",ect. You get the idea right? I've even seen some marketed to be faster than others with "benchmark" tests on the boxes, yet they always say something like the results were not typical or something.

My question is, is there really much of a different between brands/models of these cards (besides warranties and support), I realize that some of the cards seemly have been engineered to "go faster" when paired with a router from the same company, but I actually fail to see any difference in wireless networking products other than those. The fact of the matter is you actually wont get faster speeds to the internet over what your ISP provides you with.

Answer 1

Absolutely right. Its hogwash, of the same type as car manufacturers that claim mpg from a car by filling it one litre at an time on a rolling road.

The nice thing about the standards (802.11 a,b,g and WiFi) is that you can be sure that one device will work with another device. This, to my mind, is far more important than current theoretical wireless throughput.

In practical terms, even 802.11g, in the most ideal conditions, will only give you circa 27 Mpbs of TCP throughput. You can divide this by the number of simultaneously connected clients, of course.

I advise anyone who asks to wait until the next faster standard is ratified and kit starts making it out to the marketplace- this will be 802.11n. Dont bother with being tied into a single vendors 'high speed' proprietary kit that wont talk to anything else.

And- consider this practically. Do you really need more than about 10Mbps on a wifi connection for surfing, email, even streaming media? I doubt it.

Gary

Answer 2

u r right about the speed is very much depend on isp but it's a necessity to hav a wireless network card that can handle the isp speed.e.g. if the isp can give u higher speed but network card can't keep up the speed,there isn't any use to hav a higher speed internet service from ur isp.
different brand n model hav their own special advantage.some r faster n some hav longer range.e.g. wireless n claims no dead spot.

Answer 3

I agree, if you are not doing any major local networking and only using one or two wireless adapters connected to a router for internet sharing, the faster speeds offered with G, super G, etc are pretty much uneeded. But the newer g devices offer better penetration so are usefull that way.

Answer 4

the cards are basically all the same. it really depends most on the speed of your internet connection