What internet speeds would wireless N be capable of?

Viper87227

Viper87227

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Jun 2, 2004
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Ok - im not sure how to word that question... but im not asking how fast wireless N is. I know its like 144mbps or something like that. What I want to know is how that relates to internet speed. I don't know how bits bytes translate and all that crap.

My situation is this: I just had my internet bumped to a 40/20mbps service. Hardwired to the router speedtest is showing 38/18, I can handle that. My desktop is not by any phone line, so I have to go wireless with it. The wireless G card I have, with a solid 54mbps signal, is getting me a speedtest result around 14/10. I have a wireless N router - which leaves two option. Option 1 is to drill a hole and run a long ethernet cable (i live in an apartment, so this is less than favorable to the overseers), option 2 is a good wireless N card (qwest tried to supply me with some crappy usb thing that ended up slower than the wireless g card I have).

So, what I want to know, is wireless N fast enough to get me around the 38/18 speeds I get hard wired, or should I just suck it up and run some cable?
 
Yeah I think so. I've got a Netgear WNDR3700 router and 16mbit Comcast internet (i know it's not 40/20) and the WLAN runs at 300mbit (@5ghz) / 270 (@2.4ghz) and my speedtests max out.

Now that ISP speeds are slowly catching up to the ol' 54G, I think any 130 - 300mbit N connection should help maintain your advertised bandwidth.
 
If I do go the route of wireless... whats a good adapter to be looking for. Like I said, this wireless N adapter qwest gave me was crap. Speeds on it were 23-65mbps and it was overall slower than the wirelss G card I have now. How much do I need to spend for a quality wireless n card?
 
pci-e or pci, no usb adaptors...

I personally like Trendnet.
Posted via [H] Mobile Device
 
1 Byte = 8 bits. However, all your measurements so far are in bits, so that doesn't really matter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11n
802.11n can range from 6.5Mb/s to 600Mb/s, depending on a lot of stuff. It maxes out at 150Mb/s per spatial stream (each stream requires an antenna, so per antenna). Usually with wireless, you can use about half of the raw throughput, meaning actual transfer speeds of ~3Mb/s to 300Mb/s.

Looking at your current setup, 14Mb/s is only a little over a quarter of 54Mb/s. Assuming you got about the same results out of an N setup, you'd want about 4x the 40Mb/s, or 160Mb/s, to avoid bottlenecking your internet connection. 150Mb/s N may be enough, but 300Mb adds more headroom, especially if the connection isn't perfect.

Keep in mind that in 2.4GHz mode, fully utilizing N requires taking up 82% of the spectrum. For most people, that's not really feasible. You'll probably have better luck with the 5GHz band if you can use that.
 
Remember, whenever you're using wireless, you have to cut the bandwidth in half due to each packet checking itself. So a 54Mb router would only have true speeds of 26Mbps throughput (or about 3.25MB/s).
 
My router is qwest supplied actiantec q1000... I know its n that's about it. I see newegg does have a few 300mbps cards for like $25. If I did that plus a high gain antenna should I be ok?
 
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