new faster airport?
I know some of the rumor sites were talking about a new version of airport that either used 802.11g or 802.11a at like 54mbps or 108mbps and then all of a sudden they stopped talking about them all together. I was curious if anyone had read or heard anything about when they are gonna come out with these new faster standards.
Comments
I am thinking about getting airport, will it be as fast as my cable?
<strong>I am confused by the different k's and mbs,
I am thinking about getting airport, will it be as fast as my cable?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Yes. Think of it this way. A T1 is 1.544mbps up/down. Standard 802.11b supports throughput 6x of a T1 so you have plenty of bandwidth support for DSL/Cable or even a T1 if you can afford one.
802.11g will be like having standard 10T Ethernet speeds but doubled. Actual realworld speeds will vary determined by your setup but it is good speed to have via wireless.
If Apple goes with g in the next Airport, it probably won't be until next year, maybe late next year.
Also, cisco and others are starting to sell base stations with both a and b compatibility - Apple could do something like that with its base stations.
But I don't see a reason to go with 'a' for Apple's purposes. As hmurchison said, it would be unusual to need speeds higher than 11Mbps, unless Apple wants to do something with wireless video connections (which I guess is possible).
But even then I think they'll simply upgrade the access points to 802.11g with a software upgrade when its spec is finished (they couldn't do that with 802.11 a I don't think).
And a and g are similar speed, but I think a has some additional refinements that make it more efficient - like greater ability to overlap base stations - that come from using a new spectrum.
Anyway, I don't think there's any danger at all in going with the Airport that's out now.
[ 07-21-2002: Message edited by: BRussell ]</p>
Yeah, having an iMac in my kitchen is probably a good sign that I have issues too
<strong>I know some of the rumor sites were talking about a new version of airport that either used 802.11g or 802.11a at like 54mbps or 108mbps and then all of a sudden they stopped talking about them all together. I was curious if anyone had read or heard anything about when they are gonna come out with these new faster standards.</strong><hr></blockquote>
nothin new will happen with in the next few months or 5 to 6 months. but when they do more bandwith more compatibles such as cat 6 etc stuff like that cat 7 perhaps.
the only difference between the two is backwards compatability. G is fully backwards compatable to B, but A is not.
<strong>802.11 g/a run at the same exact speeds of up to 54mbps
the only difference between the two is backwards compatability. G is fully backwards compatable to B, but A is not.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Really? I have read that one has better speed and the other has better range. Both are supposed to be better than b in terems of speed.
802.11a - 54Mb 5Ghz - <100m range
802.11g - 2-54Mb 2.4Ghz - 100m+ range
It has been stated by many that 802.11a will win market dominance. Reminds me of VHS vs Beta..
<strong>
Really? I have read that one has better speed and the other has better range. Both are supposed to be better than b in terems of speed.</strong><hr></blockquote>
G is also has better encryption with less loss of speed over distance. If I recall correctly, 802.11g keeps most of its speed as you increase distance to the maximum. 802.11a rolls off in speed as you get further from the base.
<strong>Another rason to goto a faster version is bandwidth saturation. Sure, for most people, 11Mb/s it plenty fast, even for a few computers simutaniously. But, Apple is targetting Airport at more than just SoHo users. A school or office with the need to get a dozen or more Macs online at the same time would want/need better than 11Mb/s. You get 50 students all surfing, chatting, printing, accessing from/saving to network disks, watching video and all the other things they do at the same time and 11Mb/s gets parceled up pretty fast and bandwidth becomes an issue. So, not only is wanting to move big files around an issue, a large number of users with medium network drain also becomes an issue.</strong><hr></blockquote>
If I remember right, that 11mbps is per unit, not total. So if you have 30 computers on one airport, they all get 11mb/s to the Airport and to each other. Where it becomes an issue is the connection to the internet.
<strong>802.11b - 11Mb 2.4 Ghz - 100m range
802.11a - 54Mb 5Ghz - <100m range
802.11g - 2-54Mb 2.4Ghz - 100m+ range
It has been stated by many that 802.11a will win market dominance. Reminds me of VHS vs Beta..</strong><hr></blockquote>
It's 802.11b that's getting public access support, and MS is backing it too. Over here 802.11a has been refused a license as the 5Ghz band is not available.
I think b and g are winning so far actually.
<strong>
If I remember right, that 11mbps is per unit, not total. So if you have 30 computers on one airport, they all get 11mb/s to the Airport and to each other.</strong><hr></blockquote>
No, it's 11Mbps total, which has to be shared by all the computers.
<strong>
If I remember right, that 11mbps is per unit, not total. So if you have 30 computers on one airport, they all get 11mb/s to the Airport and to each other. Where it becomes an issue is the connection to the internet.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I dunno, it seems to me that if that is true, then one could do a shotgun setup, similar to when we could use 2 56k modems to connect to a supporting isp and get 128k effective. So, one could shotgun 2 airport cards and double the available bandwidth. I am pretty sure this isn't an option, and that the basestation only has 11Mb/s available cummulatively.