My older router (Linksys SRX) had served me well. The ethernet ports were only 100 Mbps, but that's lots faster than the stuff coming down the wire. The throughput on the wireless-G connection averaged around 500 - 600 Kbytes/sec but I could live with that.

Anyhow, the wireless connection took a dump - most of the time there was almost no wireless signal. Power off/power on would restore it, but I found I had to do it several times a day. So ...

Found another one (Netgear N150) laying around, which supposedly would provide wireless-N connectivity. All my wireless cards are Dells, and they are described as "dual band". I know that when I detect my neighbor's network, it lists it as G and N. So, I installed this one, and sure enough, it shows up as G and N.

I was downloading some updates for Win 7 and I noticed that the wireless throughput had gone up to match my wired speeds (2+ Mbytes/sec), so at least that aspect of the thing is making me happy.

But do I really have wireless-N? I watch the Task Manager graphs and it lists it as 54 mbps. If it were really -N, wouldn't it show up as 108 or something? I can't connect to my neighbor's network, but the wireless driver shows it as 108.

1. Just because the card is 'dual band', does that mean it's necessarily wireless-N?

2. Is there any way to positively identify a channel as -N?

3. Should I be doing something to enable simultaneous throughput on both bands, or am I mis-understanding how the whole thing works?

Not a big deal, but I'd hate to be leaving unused bandwidth on the table if I can get at it.