January 27th, 2006
Gartner Says Don’t Deploy 802.11n until 2007
By Jimmy Daniels
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews
Gartner analysts are warning people to not deploy Wi-Fi 802.11n until 2007. Broadcom and Marvel have already announced they are producing “draft compliant” chipsets, but those drafts could easily change until they are finalized. The 802.11n standard looks to increase the speed of Wi-Fi based networks up to 600Mbps.
“Plan to stay with Wi-Fi certified products under the 802.11a/b/g banner. Expect these technology investments to be good for at least four more years,” a group of three Gartner analysts recommended, adding that 802.11n should not be considered until 2007.
Broadcom and Marvell have already announced that they will start producing ‘draft-compliant’ chipsets, but Gartner labeled these claims as “misleading” and “premature”.
The analyst firm believes that the technology is likely to be changed before a final standard is approved, and that additional testing will be required to ensure compatibility with existing Wi-Fi standards.
Altogether it will take another year before the 802.11n standard is ready, Gartner predicted. Source: Vnunet.com.
We Say: My wireless network is faster than my cable modem is now anyway, no need for me to look to upgrade until I get faster and cheaper broadband. Even on a local area network level I see no need for 600Mbps speeds for my home computers yet, I’m streaming MP3’s to my surround sound system and getting my butt kicked on some games by my older boy, but why would you really need this kind of speed unless the broadband gets faster?
Omari says:
Good thing your wireless network is that fast; mine certainly isn’t. Sure, the theoretical throughput of 802.11g is 54 Mbps, and my cable modem tops out at 8 Mbps. But I don’t get transfers anywhere near 8 Mbps on my wireless. I download large files from some fast mirrors. The transfer rate tops out at 200 kB/s or so over the wireless connection; if I hook up the Ehternet, this shoots up to 1 MB/s.
I live in an apartment building with lots of interference. There’s no question that the wireless is the bottleneck, not the broadband connection. I also get tons of dropped connections. I hope 802.11n fixes both these problems.
January 27th, 2006 at 12:56 pm
Jimmy says:
Ya, I would figure you would in an apartment building as Bluetooth devices, microwaves and cordless telephones could all interfere with your network. I was at a friends the other day, who also lives in an apartment building, and while I noticed his net access was a lot slower than mine, I assumed it was the dsl connection he had and not the wireless interference.
All of my pc’s connect at 108mbps and when you sit down at any computer in my house, they are all just as fast as the one that’s plugged into the hub portion of the router. I only have a 512kpbs per second cable modem, I believe, I will have to check when I get home, and when I download large files, it hovers around the 180k per sec range on my laptop accross the wireless. But, I don’t do much heavy downloading, either.
8Mpbs, what does that cost you a month, I’m probably getting hosed by my cable company.
January 27th, 2006 at 1:14 pm
David Johnston says:
Omari, your problem might be your router more than the 802.11G standard. I’ve used 2 WRT54G’s and a WRT54GS and never had any problems with frequent dropped connections. Not all routers are created equal, and various settings (and firmwares if possible) can have a large impact on performance. Also, the speed measurements that consumer level routers quote are very inflated in all regards, not just wireless. AFAIK, even the wired ports that are supposedly 10/100 won’t get near 100Mbps throughput on the Linksys WRT54 series. The speed of the processor and the software that the consumer routers run is frequently the limiting factor.
January 27th, 2006 at 1:17 pm
Omari says:
I’ve got a Netgear router; don’t remember the model number offhand. This is my second router; the first was a Motorola that frequently dropped the connection, but only if I was sending a ton of data through it (e.g. large file transfers.)
I thought about getting another router, but I was never convinced that I could hang this problem on the router. There are lots of interference sources in the building, and when I read reviews of wireless routers, owners of all brands complain about dropped connections.
My best solution thus far is just pulling out the Cat 5. Works perfectly every time.
My Internet is Comcast; total cost for 8 Mbps is about $53 a month, not including the cable television (it costs even more if you don’t have cable television.) Expensive, but worth it.
January 27th, 2006 at 3:54 pm
TechBlog says:
You’ll want full-throttle WiFi
Also found on Real Tech News: Gartner says don’t deploy 802.11n until 2007. It points to a story at Vnunet.com802.11n is the next standard in wireless Internet access. It’s been hanging fire for several years, but the IEEE on Jan….
January 28th, 2006 at 6:23 am
Mike McKenna says:
So many variables! I have several WiFi installations. The one I’m currently using gets upload speeds of nearly 80Kbytes/sec. That’s using an 802.11b connection to a Netgear router 500′ away. The router in turn is connected to a Linksys 4-port switch which then connects to the modem which then connects to a wispertel WiFi dish that then connects to a transceiver about 10 miles away. Match that for complexity!
Just for giggles, I also run a Packet8 VoIP adapter off the ethernet port on the laptop using ICS - it works fine.
At a commercial site I maintain, uploads sometimes hit 400K bytes per second (also with Wispertel). Those are all bytes not bits. All this with WiFi connections at 11mbps.Downloads are significantly faster at all sites.
Step one is always to get a solid reference set of performance stats - connect directly to the modem (or as close as possible to the broadband source). There are many performance tests available but I use the FileZilla FTP program as my test bed. FZ can make up to 5 simultaneous connections to my FTP server at DreamHost. I also use the FasterFox extension to Firefox to measure downloads.
I have Netgear, DLink, and Linksys routers in place and I’ve tried most of the others. My old Linksys is the worst but the newer ones are clearly the best. Given my druthers, I druther use all linksys gear everywhere. After getting some baseline stats, work to get one WiFi system working at peak performance in one place. Use NetStumbler to measure signal strength - walk around with the laptop to find your best spot. I find that messing around with tuning parameters is virtually useless - in other words, the manufacturer’s defaults are just about the best you’re ever going to get. Individual results may vary. The once exception is giving yourself the biggest buffers possible on every device in the chain. Lots of memory is always good.
My favorite trick involves smoke and mirrors (literally). The smoke is from a good cigar which always helps when I’m working on this mishagas stuff. The mirror ( a real mirror - 18″ x 24″ reflects the signal to the built in WiFi antenna on the laptop (external antennas are so much better)). The performance improvement is dramatic. If you don’t have a mirror, use a CD. With NetStumbler running, move the CD around and watch signal quality vary. There are a near infinite number of variations on this theme.
The cigar is very helpful.
Oh yeah - the 500′ WiFi connection is NOT line of sight. The router is in the house on the wall furthest from the window (24′) and the receiver is 500′ away, downhill about 30′ below the sightline with a few trees in between. Pretty good eh.
Good luck.
January 28th, 2006 at 10:39 am
Jacomo says:
Disregard both Broadcom/Marvel premature and the Gartner recommendation and go with any device that you can clearly identify as having an Airgo True MIMO device in them. Preferably their 3 Gen device as deployed in Linksys new SRX 400 series Wireless Routers and Netgear 240 device.These will give you excellent MIMO features and help address most of your reach and interference problems.
Note: You will continue to have bandwidth issues with the Network coming into your home until you either get a FTTHome link or you pay some serious money for a direct wireless Link with 5-10 Mbps.
Jacomo
January 30th, 2006 at 5:30 am