how fast can the wireless speed of T43 go ?

[trapeze]

i'm using 1871-i3V with 14.1". my wireless adapter is intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2915ABG. can my wireless go up to 108 Mbps(if my wireless environment allows up to 108 Mbps) ? if not, will i have to buy a 108 Mbps wireless adapter ? then, may i have some expertise on 108 Mbps wireless adapter for my T43 ? thanks.

[rkawakami]

According to Intel's specs, the 2915abg card only supports the standard 54Mbps connect rate. If you want "108Mbps", then you'll have to change cards.

Here's some general information about wireless adapters:

- Quoted transfer speeds are theoretical. It assumes perfect conditions, which is not real-life.
- Your practical transfer speed is going to be dependent upon the slowest link in the communication chain. If you have a 108Mpbs wireless connection but are using a 384Kpbs DSL line, you won't see any real downloading benefit.
- Your 2915abg card supports the three popular protocols: 802.11b, 802.11g and 802.11a. The "b" and "g" systems use the same frequency band (2.4Ghz), while the "a" system uses 5Ghz. "b" is 11Mbps, while "a" and "g" are 54Mbps.
- Your wireless access point (WAP) will dictate the maximum connection speed. If it supports the "non-standard" 108Mbps transfer rate (like for some Netgear, D-Link and Linksys gear), then as long as the laptop's wireless card is compatible, you'll get that "extra" speed.

[Wiz]

Also remember there is a lot of overhead using wireless so using 802.11g or 802.11a you will probably not see any higher transfer rate then 25mbit in best case. The speed might differ depening on what kind of security/encryption you use as well.
The 108mbit is not a standard and i never tried it, but from what i read and heard the real speed you get using 108mbit isn't even close to twice as much as 54mbit will give you. It's faster, but not that much so i wouldn't even bother getting equipment that support 108mbit. Using 802.11a could be a benefit in some areas though since there is a lot more equipment that use the 2.4Ghz band and therefore less nosie on the 5Ghz frequency.

[trapeze]

- Your wireless access point (WAP) will dictate the maximum connection speed. If it supports the "non-standard" 108Mbps transfer rate (like for some Netgear, D-Link and Linksys gear), then as long as the laptop's wireless card is compatible, you'll get that "extra" speed.

i'm trying to get a 108Mbps wireless router hooked on a 100Mbps intranet. so if i go get a d-link supporting 108 and hook it on my intranet, i will gain some extra speed ? i am not sure if the physical specs of my intel pro wireless will hard-limit the rate up to 54Mbps... hope not...

[trapeze]

Also remember there is a lot of overhead using wireless so using 802.11g or 802.11a you will probably not see any higher transfer rate then 25mbit in best case. The speed might differ depening on what kind of security/encryption you use as well.
The 108mbit is not a standard and i never tried it, but from what i read and heard the real speed you get using 108mbit isn't even close to twice as much as 54mbit will give you. It's faster, but not that much so i wouldn't even bother getting equipment that support 108mbit. Using 802.11a could be a benefit in some areas though since there is a lot more equipment that use the 2.4Ghz band and therefore less nosie on the 5Ghz frequency.

yeh... i know i will not be able to get to 108 by using 108 wireless router.. it is just out of my curiosity and enthusiasm to try that...

i uesd to use a 54 wireless router...but that was 1 1/2 yrs ago... now i feel like it's time to kick it up a bit..

[SHoTTa35]

in order to get 108Mbps speed you'll need a card that supports it (none of the internal ones do) and a router.. usually you have to buy the USB/PCMCIA card from the same manufacturer. So if you got a Netgear router you'll need to get a Netgear card and same for DLink and Linksys and all the rest.

There were wireless desktop pci cards a while ago that was basically just a mini-pci card stuck to a regular size PCI card that you put into the PC. People used to buy those cards and take out the mini-pci and get that but they don't make those anymore. The cards today are actually built with the chip into the PCB so you can't remove them.

As for 108Mbps, it's mostly hype. There were serveral tests done to see how much speed you actually gain and it's not much. In a quiet environment 802.11G devices at close ranges got up to 27Mbps of their raited 54Mbps. The top one was a Linksys i think (that wildly popular WRT54G router that sells like wildfire! plus it's hackable) People using the DD-DRT firmware on it turned up the gain and other things (overclock the cpu in it) to get a lil faster speeds but generally that's all you got. The 108Mbps routers with matching card gave close to 40Mbps. In real world usage that's an extra 800KB/s if you're copying a file from a 100Mbps network.

Is all that worth it just for 800KB? Sure if you have 802.11B then surely go there but to upgrade from 802.11G to that is not worth it in my opinion. If you want some real speed, get a 802.11N router and the Aetheros ABGN card which is theortically capable of 300Mbps in N mode. With that you might actually get 80-100Mbps of real world usage which would make wireless in the range of LAN as it is today.

[trapeze]

If you want some real speed, get a 802.11N router and the Aetheros ABGN card which is theortically capable of 300Mbps in N mode. With that you might actually get 80-100Mbps of real world usage which would make wireless in the range of LAN as it is today.

so... if i go get a regular 108 "non-N" wireless router and use my T43 internal intel abg, what would be the pratical rate i will have ?

[SHoTTa35]

If you're only gonna use the internal ABG card then practical rate would be about 27Mbps. You will connect to the router at 54Mbps in G mode. So if you're copying data from PC to PC you can probably get 3-4 Megabytes per second top speed. This is ideally without much chatter from other wireless devices and general intereference in the area. Normally when i was burning directly from my server (100Mbps wired LAN to 54Mbps Wireless LAN) i got about maybe enough to burn at 2X which is 2.4MB/s

If i plug the cable in however i can get up to 10MB/s over wired lan of-course

[trapeze]

If i plug the cable in however i can get up to 10MB/s over wired lan of-course

how come you got only 10MB when both PCs were wire-connected to the server ?

[SHoTTa35]

Well because the network speed is 100Mbps for wired. You divide that by 8 = 12.5MBps of actual data.

Notice the size of the Bs. LAN is 100 MegaBITS while Windows reads data in MegaBYTES. Just like Hard disks say they are 40GB but are actually 37.9GB in all reality.

It's all crazy but basically you have to divide by 8 (because 8bits make 1Byte) to get the real data speed that Windows will show (minus some overhead). When you're connected to any network, whether it's WLAN, LAN, Serial, Parallel you'll be connected at some factor of bits per second.

[trapeze]

Your 2915abg card supports the three popular protocols: 802.11b, 802.11g and 802.11a. The "b" and "g" systems use the same frequency band (2.4Ghz), while the "a" system uses 5Ghz. "b" is 11Mbps, while "a" and "g" are 54Mbps.

is "a" realistically faster than "g" due to higher freq. ?

[SHoTTa35]

No A is faster in some cases because there's less interference so it doesn't have to retransmit the same packets so many times because the receiver lost it with all the junk flying around in the 2.4Ghz band. 802.11A runs in the 5Ghz range but with that you get some shorter range (higher frequencies bounce instead of penetrate - think of a club - bass (low) you can hear it outside but voices and trebbles you can't till you open the doors)

I'm thinking of going A since it's also inherently more "secure" That's like how Mac users think, but it's kinda true Less people have A capability so therefore it's more secure

[trapeze]

If you want some real speed, get a 802.11N router and the Aetheros ABGN card which is theortically capable of 300Mbps in N mode. With that you might actually get 80-100Mbps of real world usage which would make wireless in the range of LAN as it is today.

i'm considering getting ZyXEL NWD170N wireless adapter + ZyXEL NBG415N wireless router, both spport up to "N". after i get them and plug the adapter into my T43, will i really get about 80-100Mbps ? it's about 3 times faster than the 27 Mbps. However, they are not 3 times expensive than the standard 54Mbps wireless router + adapter combo...

[SHoTTa35]

just out of curiousity, why do you need that much speed anyways? You are copying large files from your desktop to your laptop and viceversa? Other than that there's no reason to get such fast speeds because it wont make your internet faster. 54Mbps is already 5 times faster than your internet i can assume.

To answer the question tho... yeah you should get some good speeds can't guarantee anything tho and it might not even be more than 60Mbps since it's still draft n not finalized yet.

[GnatGoSplat]

in order to get 108Mbps speed you'll need a card that supports it (none of the internal ones do) and a router..

Not sure what you mean by "none of the internal ones do"?
All the Atheros-based cards should support Super G 108Mbps.

My connection averages around 24Mbps with the Intel 2200BG.
I ran the same tests with Super G 108Mbps and got throughput around 36Mbps. There's definitely a speed improvement with it, at least on benchmarks.

I had 2 Cardbus, 1 Mini-PCI and 2 USB dongle 108Mbps Atheros devices and all were able to connect at 108Mbps to a D-Link DI-624 router. I upgraded to a Zyxel X-550 MIMO Super G router and unfortunately, only the Cardbus cards can connect at 108Mbps. The USB and Mini-PCI can only connect at 54Mbps. I don't know why, but not all Super G routers implement Super G the same even when they both use Atheros chipsets.

[trapeze]

just out of curiousity, why do you need that much speed anyways? You are copying large files from your desktop to your laptop and viceversa? Other than that there's no reason to get such fast speeds because it wont make your internet faster. 54Mbps is already 5 times faster than your internet i can assume.

i'm using 108Mbps intranet..so... it's out of strong desire to get faster for a heavy internet addict like me

[SHoTTa35]

in order to get 108Mbps speed you'll need a card that supports it (none of the internal ones do) and a router..

Not sure what you mean by "none of the internal ones do"?
All the Atheros-based cards should support Super G 108Mbps.

....

OK well yes i should point out that the IBM A/B/G/ one works in such a fashion however it's not a documented feature and just more of a hack but yeah it does work. I actually have an Atheros chipset and using with a NETGEAR router but i'd have to install the IBM WLAN Software to actually see it saying 108Mbps. I enabled the hack but don't know if it's really working. I am however not sharing files locally, just downloading from the net and i get as fast as i'm ever gonna get, MAX SPEED = 1.28MB/s (10Mbit/1Mbit Cable Line) As you pointed out tho, getting 108Mbps just is sometimes tricky without the right configuration (hardware/software)

And as for Mr I Need 108Mbps to download all the pr0n on the inTRANET then move over and quit hoggin all the bandwidth, i want some too. If you meant the internet then which internet provider do you have I want some of that to get faster speeds... the fastest in my area is 30Mbps from Verizon FIOS.