802.11n in new Macs, iTV may use 802.11n
http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2006/...24194334.shtml is reporting 802.11n found in new Macs.
It looks like iTV will adopt 802.11n if your Mac supports it and drop to 802.11g with heavier buffering.
Apple wants DVD-quality, smooth-as-butter streaming from your Mac to your large widescreen TV.
It looks like iTV will adopt 802.11n if your Mac supports it and drop to 802.11g with heavier buffering.
Apple wants DVD-quality, smooth-as-butter streaming from your Mac to your large widescreen TV.
Comments
http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2006/...24194334.shtml is reporting 802.11n found in new Macs.
It looks like iTV will adopt 802.11n if your Mac supports it and drop to 802.11g with heavier buffering.
Apple wants DVD-quality, smooth-as-butter streaming from your Mac to your large widescreen TV.
It's more than obvious it's for the iTV. iTV needs 802.11n for when the ITS is upgraded to HD in the next couple of years. In the mean time, it will only make things faster. Which can't be a bad thing.
Location: Australia
It's more than obvious it's for the iTV. iTV needs 802.11n for when the ITS is upgraded to HD in the next couple of years. In the mean time, it will only make things faster. Which can't be a bad thing.
Location: Australia
they need to upgrade airport base to n inorder to get increase in speed for faster internet, correct?
...Location: Australia
Really? What city mate..?
they need to upgrade airport base to n inorder to get increase in speed for faster internet, correct?
It's not for the Internet connection.
"Older ADSL standards can deliver 8 Mbit/s over about 2 km (1.25 miles) of unshielded twisted pair copper wire. The latest standard, ADSL2+, can deliver up to 24 Mbit/s"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dsl
802.11g has a max speed of 54Mbit/s, typical 25Mbit/s
802.11n has a max speed of 540Mbit/s typical 200Mbit/s
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/802.11
Note that 802.11n is a draft standard at this stage, not finalised.
For home connections, given you can get really nice ADSL2+, 802.11g has enough bandwidth to support a few wireless connections in your home.
Once a lot more people move on to [ADSL2+ and beyond] speeds (a few years time) then 802.11n will be useful to handle the bandwidth of say 5 people in a house sharing wireless connections.
At this stage the idea of 802.11n in Macs is very likely related to iTV, to have the bandwidth of streaming big video files to the iTV from the Mac.
Bottom line is that 802.11n is not ratified yet so manufacturers, Apple, etc, would generally be reluctant to take it onboard. However, Apple seems to have moved with whatever draft standard is out there now. Or, Apple has moved into a strong position to prepare for 802.11n.
802.11n would be great in general for any sort of wireless LAN because you can send and stream files at high speeds all over the place. Hence iTV (see above) usefulness. In general, in a wireless LAN setting say at a large home, home office, etc. 802.11n's max speed of 540mbit/s comes up to about half of a wired Gigabit Ethernet connection.
802.11n would NOT be useful for accessing the Internet because 802.11g connection to even your super fast ADSL2+ is more than enough.
However, let's take HighDef encoded with H.264. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264
Let's say apple shoots for the perfectly decent and quality HDTV standard 1280x720pixels progressive, 720p. According to Wikipedia, bit rates start to go to 14 Mbit/s to 56 Mbit/s depending on the level of compression. Here we can see the max speed of 54 Mbit/s of 802.11g start to get stretched.
One could conclude that Apple iTunes Store will move from 640x480 ("near-DVD-quality") up to 720p HDTV along the next few years. This would mean that wireless streaming of media will have to move up to 802.11n on the Mac side and on the iTV side.
Wireless router manufacturers are all gearing up for 802.11n.
the macs are connected via airport extreme (1 hardwired and 1 wireless) and the pc's are one hardwired and one wireless via lynksis (it doesnt like airport). thanks for info. wouldn't 802.11n be better for me if airport is upgraded past g. thanks for info.
don't mean to be ignorant but what is ADSL2+? also i have 2 hardwired and 2 wireless macs/pc's in my house sometimes all on at the same time. i have fios 15000/2000 and everything is fast but am i compromising bandwidth? if each set up is running at 15mbps and i get 54 mbps wireless and 1 gig ethernet am i loosing speed.
the macs are connected via airport extreme (1 hardwired and 1 wireless) and the pc's are one hardwired and one wireless via lynksis (it doesnt like airport). thanks for info. wouldn't 802.11n be better for me if airport is upgraded past g. thanks for info.
ADSL2+ is the next generation of ADSL that can give you say over 10x more speed than what you have now (say your 1Mbit/sec DSL can go to 10Mbit/sec ADSL2+ if available, location is right, etc.).
Yes. In general 802.11n will be better for home wireless networks. Just 802.11g transfer computer to computer of video files from my PC to my Mac takes quite a while. 802.11n would be cool. Remember though that if Airport or Linksys is 802.11n for best use with it ALL your connecting computers have to have wireless 802.11n cards, not g.
If you have a mixture of 802.11n and 802.11g devices, not exactly sure how it works depending on wireless routers and the wireless cards but you may have to run the whole network at fallback to 802.11g protocol.
also do i have enough bandwidth now with 4 macs/pc's with a 15000/2000 dsl connnection?
also how do i get ADSL2+. or what else can i do to maximize internet speed? is the server of the various web sites the actual bottleneck - or would it be my internet connection, or too many machines splitting bandwidth. thanks again for info.
ok back to my original thought. if new i macs are 802.11n and they upgrade airport to 802.11n then wireless internet will be alot faster, right?
Within your wireless LAN transfers will be faster but your Internet speed is the bottleneck even with 802.11n (see later down below)
Linksys is now advertising their 802.11n products, "Wireless-N". See what they're offering:
http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satel...VisitorWrapper
also do i have enough bandwidth now with 4 macs/pc's with a 15000/2000 dsl connnection? also how do i get ADSL2+. or what else can i do to maximize internet speed? is the server of the various web sites the actual bottleneck - or would it be my internet connection, or too many machines splitting bandwidth.
Right now all of your wireless should be 802.11g. So transfer between your computers will be not too bad, given that there is no official support for new Macs with 802.11n at this stage. 802.11n like the Linksys advertised above will be nice for faster transfer of files between computers over wireless. But, as mentioned, all your wireless-connected computers have to have 802.11n in it. Also, the risk is that 802.11n is not an official standard, if it changes say one year down the line then your equipment might be obsolete. It's a tough choice, particularly since new Macs do not officially have 802.11n AND older Macs cannot be easily upgraded to 802.11n, since 802.11g is built into them.
One would assume that the Apple strategy is to target all those with 802.11g. As new models of iTV and Macs appear alongside official 802.11n, then you'll see Apple wireless network and streaming solutions etc. take advantage of 802.11n [official]. Apple is playing a bit of a wait-and-see with its Macs and iTV, ready to jump on 802.11n once it becomes a proper official, interoperable standard. In the meantime, it's building its systems around 802.11g, or 802.11n prototype, fallback to 802.11g.
Now, with your DSL connection, you have enough bandwidth within your home network to access the Internet. The bottleneck will be the DSL connection to get to websites and servers. Best thing is buy a good PC magazine from your newsagent. Then look at the ads by service providers who offer DSL, see if they have ADSL2+ in your area. Then see what sort of speeds they promise you. Ask around and see if any of your tech friends have ADSL2+.
thanks again for info.
No worries, I am also learning about 802.11n and products and stuff.
................
................
What about those of us with b and g wireless Macs? Sorry if this is a stupid question.
I think the Airport 802.11g and something like Linksys 802.11g will try to serve 802.11g to G wireless Macs, and serve B at the same time to B wireless Macs. Or, worst case scenario, everything is downgraded to 802.11b. I don't know
802.11n should help in a variety of ways...its MIMO to begin with, uses a wider channel bandwidth and uses better protocols so its more efficient and supports QOS to give VOIP and video streaming more priority than other traffic. My wife glares at me when Vonage starts dropping out because I currently have that on wireless and I'm surfing while she's talking. Before, on a wired connection it was always rock solid.
Unless Apple intends to wait until 2008 what they will likely ship with is whatever passes the Wi-Fi Alliance interop testing. Its good that its a Broadcom chip as Broadcom and Atheros claim interoperability based on draft 1.0. Fortunately for Apple they control most of the wireless devices that go into their machines. Apple can go pre-N a lot safer than the PC world can.
One problem in 2006 is that pre-N tends to really hose up nearby older a/b/g networks and some combination of pre-N routers and G clients suffer poor transfer rates (like down to 6 Mbps). The intel clients were the ones with issues during testing if I remember right.
On the plus side, when it does work ranges are much better even for legacy a/b/g clients.
Vinea
Also, the risk is that 802.11n is not an official standard, if it changes say one year down the line then your equipment might be obsolete.
802.11n is to be ratified in June 07. So by the first quarter 07 it should pretty much be set in stone all except for the organizational paperwork and formalities.
What about those of us with b and g wireless Macs? Sorry if this is a stupid question.
From what has been proposed 802.11n is backward compatible with a and g. In fact because n is so much faster g can run at its full 54Mbps. But n will not play well with b because of some protocol differences.
No, I meant will the Macs work with iTV?
If iTV uses n it will also work with the g currently in your computer. But the connection will be limited to sending 54Mbps at maximum.
802.11n is to be ratified in June 07. So by the first quarter 07 it should pretty much be set in stone all except for the organizational paperwork and formalities.
No the 802.11n standard got pushed a whole year by IEEE. Draft 2.0 is expected to be ratified by March...then Wi-Fi Alliance will have "phase 1" certs by Juneish that should include Draft 2.0 compliance...assuming that the March date doesn't fall apart in which case the certification will be for Draft 1.0+whatever manufacturers agree to.
Phase 1 certified gear are not guaranteed to work with Phase 2 certified gear (which will be for the final N standard) but should work with all other Phase 1 gear.
This is a lot like what they did for WPA when that standard got pushed back. WPA2 (the final version of 802.11i) didn't cause much of a ripple when it finally entered the market but WPA was really needed since WEP turned out to be such a joke and indstry couldn't wait a year for the standards folks to finish up.
Likewise this phase 1 certification addresses the need for speed that everyone wants but no one trusts of pre-N gear. Odds are the Phase 1 gear will work well enough with Phase 2 gear that you can slowly transistion to Phase 2 gear over time. What you really want out of n are the speed improvements and QOS support to handle VOIP and media streaming without hosing legacy networks in the process. That should be in Phase 1 (assuming Draft 2.0).
More important for Apple is that Intel states that they will go Draft-N with Santa Rosa...easier to upgrade desktops than laptops.
I'd say that's what going in the iTV and future Airports and Macs...if Draft 2.0 actually makes it out the door in January, Airgo and Broadcom (and likely Intel) are going to produce gear base on that and have it ready for Wi-Fi Alliance certification...Draft-N gear that passes Phase 1 certification is IMHO safe enough to buy...especially with the final standard pushed out to 2008.
But the final standard could (and likely will) look different. But heck, that's nearly 2 years away and could be more as Draft 1 didn't go over all athat well.
Vinea
No, I meant will the Macs work with iTV?
I strongly suspect 802.11B Macs WILL NOT work with iTV.
No the 802.11n standard got pushed a whole year by IEEE. Draft 2.0 is expected to be ratified by March....
Yeah it looks like that decision was being made right when I wrote that last post.
But it looks as though the WiFi Alliance will give the go ahead to certify 802.11n products in March. They only have so much time they can hold it back. If one company begins to ship n products to stay competitive other companies will begin to ship n products. Along with this Apple will need to ship n products at some point soon. The WFA can only hold it back for so long.
One point I did have wrong in my previous post. 802.11g used on a 802.11n network will boost the g maximum speed from 54Mbps to 540Mbps. So in theory if iTV uses 802.11n with a Mac with the current Airport Extreme Card. The maximum data speed would be 540Mbps.
802.11g used on a 802.11n network will boost the g maximum speed from 54Mbps to 540Mbps. So in theory if iTV uses 802.11n with a Mac with the current Airport Extreme Card. The maximum data speed would be 540Mbps.
Are you sure?