Cable Router advice... and all the lingo!?!

[ThunderBolt]

Hiya all...

I know this has probably been asked a thousand times but networking isn't my speciality and find it a litlle hard to understand all the threads I've looked at so far.

OK... Here goes.

I'm about to sign up with Virgin Media on a 2 or 4meg Cable BB connection so need to replace my Wireless ADSL setup with one for Cable. Preferably at low cost - say £30 to £60 (Told you I was clueless!).

When I set up my ADSL wireless gear everything seemed much clearer but while looking round I see b's and g's and mimo's... Pre n's and Super G's! I was also after one I could plug an external HD into but I'm guessing that would put the price up too high.

My questions then are...
1. If I opt for Super g does my laptop need Super G?
2. If I go for MIMO does laptop need that?
3. How do I tell if my laptop has these?

Any recommendations are also welcome. My main PC will be wired and VOIP would be a bonus but by no means essential. Also being able to use a PS2 would be good.

Thanks for your help!

[Avalon]

If you go for any of the newer standards to get the benefit whatever you connect will need to support the same standard or you won't see the advantage. As for knowing what your laptop supports i'll avoid the RTFM reply in favour of 'Google is your friend' if the hardware properties won't tell you as I haven't a clue what laptop or card you have ...

If wifi isn't a major issue then the WRT54GL is a good bet when combined with the likes of DDWRT. If you want additional storage then the NSLU2 could be a plan but it all depends if you don't mind getting your hands a little more dirty so to speak.

[ThunderBolt]

Thanks Avalon...

Showing myself as an inexperienced net junkie I thought RTFM meant Read The Forums Mate... Google educated me otherwise!!! Sadly I can't find the "FM" to save my life and Philips site seems unaware that Philips hass ever produced this machine!

Googled my Philips x56 laptops wireless standards but didn't find anything conclusive. Is "G" & "Super G" a differemt standard then? I was hoping it would have been in the Hardware properties section on the PC itself, but no luck there.

Nice to know I can add network storage kit at a later date so ta very much for that. Still open to suggestions on router itself. I've been told D-Link make some nice cheap n ceerful ones but that's not much help as the reviews I have read seem very mixed.

It's not really vital to have mega transfer speeds. Range and reliability are more important to be honest.

Thanks again

[Avalon]

Ok you made me smile and I love a challenge so after a little work i found the FM

For future reference http://www.pcservicecall.co.uk and choose Product Guides. Your laptop is infact a DSG exclusive and has nothing to do with Philips, they just allowed them to use the name. Your WiFi is infact a standard intel part and will work with any b or g router up to a speed of 54mbit.

See http://support.intel.com/support/wir...lan/pro2200bg/

and http://www.pcservicecall.co.uk/Uploa...20wireless.pdf

Intel® Pro 2200BG wireless LAN
Supports 802.11b/g wireless networks and is Wi-Fi compliant.
Industry standard and extended wireless security support.
Intel® Intelligent Scanning Technology reduces power by controlling the frequency of scanning for access points.
Power management utilities and functions to maximise the battery life of your notebook.


With this in mind the Linksys WRT54GL would be perfect for you with or without DDWRT loaded.

[Zaphan58]

I second the linksys WRT54GL, I have used mine in two different houses and it always gets a good signal even 3 floors up from it.

Apart from signal strength it has a lot of handy features and is rock stable, I love it.

I tried the Netgear equivilant in my sisters house and the signal was nowhere near as good as what I get from my Linksys.

[ThunderBolt]

Thanks for the tips you 2...

Ordered Virgin and due to install in early April which gives me a bit of time to check out some routers. The Linksys seems reasonable and although has mixed reviews seems to be disliked only by people with a Mac or some other small gripe so it's on the possible list at least.

Avalon Been looking at some of the info at the links you quoted. Led to a lot more reading - some of which I couldn't understand but I'm working on it!

As I may have said, PC to PC transfer speed isn't a priority, but I would like to be sure I got the full rate of my broadband speed in the future. Also, I noticed that a lot of the spec lists of routers quote a speed for transfer, but don't state whether it's a wireless only or wired as well. In other words - if my ISP bumped the speed up to something daft like 80meg (I know... Just if) and the router says 54 would I lose the rest of the speed on a wired PC?

Any more recommendations... Or indeed ones to steer clear of, more than welcome!

Cheers!

[Steve B]

I'll third that Linksys one, owning a 4-port wired (an older model), and a 4-port wireless both of them are top notch.

With regards to wireless speeds.
The linksys routers give 100/10Mbit transfer speeds. This means on a wired connection, the maximum speed you'll be able to achieve is 100Mbits. Note that this is 100/8 = 12.5MBs.

Theres a few standards for wireless:
802.11b : Maximum Transfer speed of 11Mbits.
802.11g : Max. of 54Mbits.
802.11n : Max. of 200Mbits.

N tech is relatively expensive compared to b/g stuff, as its quite new.
G tech has been expanded upon to give flavours such as turboG and superG, but its essentially just G with more juice.

MIMO is multiple input / multiple output. It adds a few Antennas to provide better signal coverage.

Finally, if Virgin upped the speed to 80Mbit, you'd still be inside the max. capabilities of your router on a wired connection, and just outwith the capabilities on a wireless connection.

HTH,
Steve

[ThunderBolt]

Thanks for that Steve B... Helps a lot!

I had been thinking that all I had to look out for was the b/g/n standards, and that superG or G+ was an added extra and would bring upped performance to any g capable laptop. As foe MIMO & n, I did suspect that a g laptop wouldn't gain anything without an upgrade but thanks all for confirming it for me.

I've got a couple of weeks now to decide on a router & the WRT54GL is looking favourite. I'm also considering a few others and am still open to suggestions...

Linksys
WRTSL54GS
WRT54GC-UK

D-Link
DI-524/B
DI-624/B

Belkin
F5D7231uk4

I can't seem to add links for these at the moment - sorry!

Thanks again, LD

[Avalon]

The 54G laptop will gain nothing from mimo or n sadly. I'd be hard pushed to reccomend anything you can't run DDWRT on being honest.

[ThunderBolt]

The 54G laptop will gain nothing from mimo or n sadly.

Thanks Avalon... I suspected this might have been the case but was wondering about all this Super G, G+ shenannigans.

I'd be hard pushed to reccomend anything you can't run DDWRT on being honest.

Googled DDWRT... I take it this is firmaware only to be used with linksys?!?

[ThunderBolt]

Hiya...

Just thought I'd let you know that I've now bought myself a router ready for Virgin next week. I hope I haven't fallen for the patter of the shop keeper, but this is what I got for £65, which seems a good price.

ZyXEL P-336M MIMO 802.11g 108Mbps Wireless Firewall Router Bundled with M-102 PC Card

It seems I timed it right for once as well as My brother went up for one this morning and it had gone to £107 for the same package.

[Avalon]

DD-WRT is a firmware for certain routers, the most well known being the Linksys WRT54G/S/L series of hardware. They are widely regarded as being very solid and offer features to cover most situations. I can't comment one way or the other on the Zyxel unit as i've not had the pleasure but i've not seen anything too negative about them so here's hoping!

[Apex]

I can recommend either

Buffalo WHR-HP-G54

or the

Buffalo WHR-G54S Router

both use the broadcom chip set and thus can use 3rd party firmware just like the linksys ones

As for Super G and Turbo G or what ever the makes call it is a small trick.

What the tech does is use one channel for transmit and one channel for receive, you don't actually get 108mbps throughput you still only have 54mbps. ( 108mbps = 54*2 )

Most of the time they use 20mhz channel spacing but I've seen some tech docs refer to them using 40mhz spacing to squeeze more through avoid problems with other AP's but then using 40mhz spacing it's self generates problems for other wireless users in the area

As above can not same much for the ZyXEL.

It as MIMO which should help with range but this has to be matched with decent transmitter and receiver sensitivity and most usb/laptop cards sadly are very poor at this.

Reason i say go for the Buffalo is that it uses a detachable antenna that allows you to get a 5dbi and above hi-gain antennas fitted to the unit.

You are right in saying there's a aweful lot of confusing info out there and it's only going to get worse.

hth

ps

Networking speeds are also another area that has a lot of confusion.

The makers list speeds in mega bits but we are use to working in mega bytes.

There are 8bits to every byte so

Lan Speeds

10 MB = 1.25 Mb
100 MB = 12.5 Mb
1000 MB = 125 Mb

Wireless Speeds

11MB = 1.375Mb
54MB = 6.75Mb

This is the maximum that you would be able to transfer at.

I've not listed the 108MB and above speeds as this is misleading info, your not actually running at them speeds, your still at 54MB speeds as all the faster speeds are doing is using more then one channel, bigger channel channel spacing 40mhz as aposed to 20mhz and using one for transmit and one for recieve