This only really applies if you are talking about local file transfers on the network within the house, or apartment in the OP's case. Remember that anything you place as the terminus of the WAN connection (DSL, Fiber, whatever) is going to be oversubscribed from the beginning, unless you are connecting an 11Mbps wireless router on a 12Mbps or higher ISP connection. Any modern router, wired or wireless, is going to be permitting more bandwidth on the internal segments than the external segment is capable of provisioning.

Personally, I have used Linksys devices when I controlled the WAP in my homes (I use the FiOS router for it right now, which is an Actiontec). I also carry the small Airport with me when I travel (love the small size and ease of use).

I think the the protocol, 802.11 B, G or N, CAN make a differenace on WAN download performance on a mixed network with more than one user or even just with a decent sized pipe.

Each protocol includes quite a bit of overhead, so not all the spectrum and bandwidth is actually available for data transfer. When using a B network compared to a G network, I certainly can see better performance just downloading files to the LAN (I think the B performance pretty much tops out at 3-4MB), and when there are two-three of us in the home using the network (I only have a 10mb pipe here) I don't see any degradation of performance on G and certainly not using N now, which I DID see with the B routers

But yes, on the LAN is where one will see the best performance using a newer protocol for file transfer speeds.

Because I am not suffering from packet loss, latency or other performance issues.

I'm sure that there are some retries going on in the ether but not enough to matter in my overall performance.

When we used 2.4Ghz house phone, I certainly can see transfer rate drop when someone is on the phone. Our solution was changing the phones to DECT and still used 2.4Ghz WiFi. But then we are in the suburbs and my neighbor's 2.4Ghz phones are pretty far away. They use the same Siemens phones we used to have.

2.4Ghz channel spacing is only 5.5Mhz and 11n draft 40Mhz bandwidth would span almost 4 channels to the left and to the right. That is why many router companies only offer 20Mhz bandwidth. One can only hope their neighbors don't upgrade to 11n draft equipment.

In a crowded urban signal spectrum and buying new equipment, 5.8Ghz is still much better as one has little control over what one's neighbors use.

I purposefully didn't get a 2.4GHz phone because of that; I'm still using a 900MHz and am quite happy with it. And there are a whole bunch of phones in the 5.8GHz range, too.

The systems are designed to handle the interference and work around it in most cases. And there are really only three channels worth using in the B/G spectrum anyways because of the overlap. And, as noted before, buying a router that works in the 5.8GHz range would mean buying new client ahrdware, too. Unless you're willing to invest in both the router and the client the expense almost certainly outweighs the potential benefits you'd get from the currently less crowded spectrum.

Yes, it goes without saying that a 11abgn adapter will be needed.

About half of my PCs can do 11a or 11n. Less than $400 laptop seems to be still equipped with 11bg but $500 laptops are now shipping with 11abgn cards.

The laptop I am typing on has an Atheros AR5008 abgn miniPCI card purchased for about $40, replacing an 11bg card in it before. My work laptop has a similar mini PCI-Express card in it.

So having an 11abgn client card is not a big deal today.

For the OP with a MacBook and a Tivo I'd say that it is more of a big deal than you're suggesting. ;)

And I still do not believe it is worth even the minimal $40 up-charge to get to that point.

the nice thing about A, is that nobody really uses it, so in a mixed environment the signal can be pretty clean.

I think it is dying though, which means support and clients will be harder to find for it.

Tivo will be on ethernet. MacBook will be hard due to cost or setup?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=400053185723

Not quite sure this MacBook is new enough to have a mini PCI-Express slot but USB dongle should work too. I have Cardbus and USB 11n NICs.

Most dual band 11n support 11a also, same 5.8Ghz band and OFDM modulation but with channel bonding, encryption and other newer features. So 11a is benefiting from the newer wave of 11n dual band equipment. My 11a Access Point broke a long time ago but I still have a few client cards.

Linksys WRT54GL
 

Bump on this thread.

My netgear router is dying, don't really need wireless-n for our townhouse in a suburban area and even though we are predominantly Macs, buying airport station kind of pricey.

We used linksys as our first router eons ago and will go back to Linksys WRT54GL. In reading this thread, etc. note people recommend upgrading to above firmware. But in reading wikipedia, they indicate it's either tomato or dd-wrt? Is that true?

And is it hard (I haven't read or found it yet) to upgrade to the firmware?

Upgrading linksys firmware is really simple - you just log in using the router's web page - there's ad admin tab, then a firmware upgrade tab.

I've found the linksys firmware sufficient for my needs and haven't done dd-wrt.

Also, some TMO stores still have a few WRT54G-TM routers - I picked up an extra one earlier this year for around $25 - am, but didn't have to be a TMO customer.

yes, it's one or the other. They are both open source firmware for routers.

With the WRT54GL model, it's usually one step to upgrade from the stock firmware to DD-WRT standard version, but it's been a while since I've done it. With other models, it can sometimes be a two-step task to get to the standard fw, or one-step to load up a mini or micro version of the fw. It was very easy to upgrade when I did it some time ago.

-David

MB and LIH - thanks for the info. I'm watching/bidding on ebay a couple of them that have been already upgraded to dd-wrt.

I have used both on open source routers, tomato and DD-WRT. I prefer the tomato for a slightly easier configurability, but also use the DD-WRT on a netgear N router, and it does work fine.

Thanks again.

My bid (4th try!) landed LINKSYS WRT54G-TM / WRT54GL DD-WRT HEATSINK 32MB Memory for $38.50 plus $14.10 shipping. Amazed at price differences for this unit, anywhere from ~$45 to $80 on eBay.

Amazon was selling 'stock' model for $56 and free shipping...