Wireless Networking

[Trebor]

I'm going to setup some lovely Wi-Fi goodness in my flat. Being the loyal-droog-Apple-whore I simply thought Airport Extreme base station (£119) = job done. I then saw the Airport Express (£65) which also said it was capable of setting up a wireless network. The major difference for me was the whole one Gigabit/ 10/100 stuff, Extreme being the one gigabit ethernet beast.

I'm not particularly fussed about connecting an external hard drive or other modems/RJ45 leads to the router so that's where Airport Express seemed like the logical option. But ultimately I want to ensure speedy connection for mine and my brothers computers so we don't mind going the full whack.

My question is would we notice the difference between the 10/100 and the gigabit router? And will the net connection feel slower with two PC's using the net at the same time? Perhaps that's a really idiotic question but I'd appreciate someone finally clearing that one up.

ISP: Virgin Media

Connection: 2 Meg Fibre Optic

Use: Email + Browsing + Streaming + downloading

Devices: iMac (wifi capable) + Dell Desktop (no WiFi card but he'll get a USB receiver) + Toshiba Laptop (wifi capable) + iPod Touch

[James Quigley]

All I can really answer is the interweb speed with multiple users.

Just general web browsing there will be no noticeable difference in speed. However, if one or more of you are streaming/downloading you will notice a substantial difference. (Mainly if downloading as it saps the bandwidth. Streaming isn't too bad).

On the external hard drive front (I know you said you weren't connecting) I have mine wired directly into my comp but have shared it so everyone on the network has access to it, only downside is my comp needs to be on for them to access it.

On the router front I'm with good ole Netgear so no help there.

[Tomm]

Apple airport basestations are so overpriced. The extreme one (I think) does wireless N instead of G which is faster but only if your computers are compatible with wireless N. If your iMac is relatively new, it might be (check the specs). The other computers / iPod won't be.

It's all completely academic if you only plan on downloading stuff from the web though. Your internet is 2meg? Well even the 'slow' wireless G is 54 meg. The faster wireless N is 108 meg. Normal ethernet is 100meg, gigabit ethernet means 1000meg. My point is that if you're only ever using the internet, you will never come close to saturating the bandwidth of even wireless G. It would only be if you plan on streaming hi-def video or something across your network, or doing regular backups to a networked drive. Which you have said you're not doing, so there's no point in getting anything fancy.

Just get any old netgear/D-link/Belkin wireless G router.

If your brother is torrenting stuff or downloading lots of stuff, then yeah, it'll affect the speed of your connection. But not if he's just loading web pages etc.

[Swize]

Go for a netgear router save some money and then put it in to a wireless card for your brothers computer instead of a USB dongles. The dongles arnt so good and often loose connections a fair bit.

There actually a sale on at ebuyer at the moment where you could pick up a wireless netgear router for about £30.

A wireless PCI card will cost you little more than £15.

My question is would we notice the difference between the 10/100 and the gigabit router? And will the net connection feel slower with two PC's using the net at the same time? Perhaps that's a really idiotic question but I'd appreciate someone finally clearing that one up.

You wont notice a difference between the two running wireless because wireless does not run a GB speeds. So just got for a 10/100mb router but that only really applies to the computers that would be cabled in because the wireless will only run at 54mbs.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct....%20Modem/Router

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct....twork%20Adapter

Above would do fine for what you want. And its a lot cheaper than the apple setup.

Will the net feel slower? Well it can do depends upon the strain on it. If someone is tormenting and downloading draining the connection its gonna feel a little slower but two computers playing games, emails, porn, general surfing your not gonna notice it at all.

Hope i helped a little.