Don't mess with 802.11g, researcher warns

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Businesses have this week been warned to steer clear of 802.11g wireless LAN technology by market research organisation Gartner.

Devices based on the 802.11g specification operate in the same 2.4GHz band as current 802.11b WLAN products but have a maximum throughput of 54Mbps rather than 802.11b's 11Mbps.

Attractive though the 802.11g technology is, Gartner believes that until products based on the spec can be officially certified, buyers should put purchasing on hold.

Gartner claims buyers of today's 802.11g access points and base-stations risk "interoperability and performance problems in a multivendor environment, particularly with certified 802.11b products installed in PCs in a mixed 802.11b and 802.11g operating environment".

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News source: theregister.co.uk

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#1 ahodes1 on 08 Mar 2003 - 22:08

Most devices should be flash upgradeable anyway

#2 Kombatant on 08 Mar 2003 - 22:33

Depends... since the standard is not yet finalized, you cannot expect total compatibility throughout the spectre, Gartner is right. And of course not everything is a matter of software, so that a simple flash upgrade would fix

#3 DjmUK on 09 Mar 2003 - 00:00

So, since 802.11g isn't yet a standard. I was wondering how long and how would it become a finalised standard (if it does - which is possible)?

#4 xStainDx on 09 Mar 2003 - 00:38

The Title should be "Don't Mess with DRAFT 802.11g, researcher warns"

(1 reply) #5 aristotle-dude on 09 Mar 2003 - 00:55

What a load. How much did the opponents of 802.11G (proponents of 802.11A which is incompatible with 802.11b ) pay Garter?

#5.1 xWeston on 09 Mar 2003 - 02:42

[neoquote=#5.0 by aristotle-dude]What a load. How much did the opponents of 802.11G (proponents of 802.11A which is incompatible with 802.11b ) pay Garter?[/neoquote] I have tried 802.11g equipment and it was pretty bad. The compatibility with 802.11b is where they are having the biggest problems. 802.11g is good but not as fast as it is cracked up to be (about 17mbps real world, we should expect more like 50% of 54mbs which is about 27mbps). However, most companies are promising firmware upgrades that will make their equipment compatible with the finalized standard. D-link has 2 revisions of their DWL-g650 out already, and the first one definitely sucked (they switched chipsets for the second one)

#6 zivan56 on 09 Mar 2003 - 00:59

I'll be waiting untill 802.11g+ routers get cheap, 108Mbps

I'm stuck with my 802.11b+ @ 22Mbps for the time though.

#7 Yvo on 09 Mar 2003 - 02:38

i am going to agree with gartner.... the specification might change and if a drastic change has to be done to hardware, a flash will definitely not work.

(2 replies) #8 Michael Lerner on 09 Mar 2003 - 03:07

Gartner is usually wrong about everything. Remember the articles about 'Linux costs more then Windows'?

#8.1 FISKER_Q on 09 Mar 2003 - 09:41

Well that depends on how good people are. Im sure for a linux administrator it wouldnt be something costfull since the administrator doesnt need to have a course in it. But maybe the windows administrator do. Although i would say that a linux administrator or just a administrator with not that good knowledge would be able to handle a windows server better. Which why they hire interns here in Denmark and run windows servers. cheap wage, cheap setup, no worries. I havent read his article about windows costs less than linux though. But else i agree, we need to have som compatibillity.

#8.2 JaggedFlame on 09 Mar 2003 - 17:38

I would think that a Linux administrator would need to have at least the same number, if not more, of courses as a Windows counterpart, considering how much harder the user interface is.

#9 NeoMayhem on 09 Mar 2003 - 04:54

I am waiting for the standered, and a price drop, but 802.11g does look like the furture

I bet that 100mb+ wireless will be available next year

(1 reply) #10 astrokat on 09 Mar 2003 - 05:30

what routers support 802.11g besides apple?

#10.1 Marshalus on 09 Mar 2003 - 06:24

Linksys, D-Link, to name a couple off the top of my head.

#11 rastachops on 09 Mar 2003 - 12:14

Oh well, ill enjoy 802.11g with my Powerbook ... ive just ordered an Airport Extreme card

(4 replies) #12 DjmUK on 09 Mar 2003 - 13:07

http://www.linksys.com has a range of 802.11g devices. Anyways, one of you said you should get 27Mbps out of the 54Mbps...how come? I thought if it says 54Mbps - that you would get 54Mbps (bits per second), unless it's like the modem numbering, as in - divide it all by 8. If it's so slow (27Mbps out of 54Mbps), then wouldn't Ethernet be a lot faster: 10/100 (0 - 12 Megabytes) compared to (3.3 - 6.7 Megabytes). Then again, it is the hassle free environment of cabling. I'll wait until it becomes a standard and I'll think about it then.

#12.1 xStainDx on 09 Mar 2003 - 14:23

i guess you don't know 1 thing about wireless.

you never get the rated speed. its basically impossible.

#12.2 xWeston on 09 Mar 2003 - 18:21

you can just usually expect half of the rated speed with wireless. You will never get the "theoretical" speed. Even with wired connections you never get the speed that they say, although it is more than half of the rated speed. Go read a little bit instead of posting comments!

#12.3 Yvo on 09 Mar 2003 - 18:48

god damn you guys are rude. just because someone doesn't know much about wireless you don't have to attack em for it. Learn to behave against others.. sheesh

#12.4 DjmUK on 09 Mar 2003 - 18:54

Last time I checked, I didn't realise that I had to know everything about everything. Thanks Yvo for sticking up for me, all I wanted to do was to learn something I don't yet know - and since a lot of people here know these things, I thought it was a good opportunity to ask a simple question. What was I thinking!

#13 DjmUK on 09 Mar 2003 - 16:17

#12.1 Strange, why don't they just put the average true rated speed, otherwise it's just a big mislead.

#14 Sk_illed on 09 Mar 2003 - 17:17

I have one of the linksys routers (wrt54g) it works great so far... speed is max 2800KB a sec... they still need some more firmware tweaks tho.. Firmware that came out this thurs: • Incorporates updates found in the Draft IEEE 802.11g version 6.1 specification. • Resolves interoperability and backward compatibility issues with legacy 802.11b devices under Mixed Mode. • Fixed a performance bug where the performance in a mixed b, g network did not go up once the last b client disassociated. • No WEP enabled performance degradation. • TZO DDNS Service: WRT54G did not use the correct port number 21340 to establish TCP socket connections or use port number 21347 to connect the TZO server. • "Domain Name" replaces "name". • TFTP server will only verify image file name "xxxx.bin". • MAC Address Filter under the Advanced tab works on both wired and wireless clients. • Fixed a bug that prevented wireless clients from connecting to the Internet if there was no active wired PC (PPoE customers in Europe and China only). • Support for UPnP enabled applications such as MSN Messenger. • Fixed a bug that caused computers connected to the "wired" ports to be dropped at some interval only to be immediately re-connected. • Fixed Dynamic Routing issue between 2 Routers. ENHANCEMENTS: • Newly revised User Guide, Quick Install, and Help File. • User can name the Static Route Configuration. • Modified PC List Web Page to avoid confusion. • Significant performance improvements. • Stabilized Wireless-G to LAN and WAN Throughput. • Stabilized Wireless-B to LAN and WAN Throughput. • Improved LAN-WAN Throughput.

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