Airport vs LynksisWRT54G Wireless-G Router

[chriskleeman]

Are there any of you TSer networking gurus that might know where I can find the specs for my Snow Airport? I mucked through the apple site today to no avail...

The reason I ask is that I am trying to increase the wireless access speed for the rest of the household (daughter's Dalmation i-mac, wife's G4 i-book), and am thinking about getting a Lynksis WRT54G Wireless-G Router. My Netgear MR814 has blown it's little digital brain just as we had ADSL x2 installed, so I'm left with the Snow Airport, and while very trusty, is fairly old technology these days...

I do notice that my computer seems faster when connected directly to the new modem, as opposed to connecting to the LAN port on the Airport (I'm not wireless on my computer) so I'm thinking that the Lynkis might be considerably faster for everyone.

I'm also trying to go the path of least resistance, as the tech who installed the ADSL x2 said that other clients seem to have had better success with the Lynksis than other routers interfacing with the ADSL modem made by BEC.

Your thoughts, most honorable TS folks?  

Thanks, and think sun!

CK

[Al]

Hi Chris,

If you are only seeking more speed for the internet, then any router wifi B or G will do the same.  The internet or cable/adsl modems only runs at approximately 11 Mbs or less.  Mostly all are less.  But, if your are file transfering or playing LAN games then the wireless G router will do more there (54 Mbs).

An Airport is 11 Mbs (wireless and an Airport Extreme is 54 Mbs (wireless G).

Newer technologies are not fully exploited yet on the market, but, are available.  Pre N? N?

Airport Specs
http://support.apple.com/specs/airport/Air...l_Ethernet.html

[chriskleeman]

Thanks Al,

Don't quite know how I missed those specs, very much appreciate the link!

It just seems that the Airport is slow in wireless mode, compared to the Netgear, which is now defunct... So I was thinking, which is dangerous for me, that I might get a significant speed bump just for general downloading. The Airport is signifcantly slower in for the wireless users than my direct connection.

More range may be a factor, which the Lynksis should provide.

N? Pre-N? Ques que c'est? Pardon my French and my numbness  

Thanks,

Chris K  

[sandbox]

Have a look here:

http://www.netgear.com/products/details/WNR854T.php
 RangeMax™ Next Wireless Router - Gigabit Edition
Model WNR854T

Key Benefits

    * Draft 802.11n compliant
    * Interoperable at 300Mbps speed with products with TopDog™
    * Steady-Stream connections
    * 11n-True Test high-performance testing and tuning
    * Advanced MIMO technology – for speed and range
    * Fastest WAN / LAN / WLAN throughput with built-in 5-port Gigabit Switch

[gunug]

I do real well with my Linksys WRT54G but I don't think it's any faster than any other Router in that class.  I did reflash it with a different third party program that has more features (my favorite being able to adjust the signal strength so it doesn't go much beyond my house).  There are current routers that are faster through some sort of compression but you also have to have a wireless card in the computer that has the same chipset.

Atheros is a company that has Routers and Cards that together offer twice the throughput in the same G-class of router.  They call this Super-G technology:

http://www.super-g.com/faqs.html

Orangeware has drivers that allow you to use a bunch of the different Atheros based PCI cards in MACs under OS X:

http://www.orangeware.com/endusers/wirelessformac.html

[kelly]

Just saw those hacks.

Hack Attack: Turn your $60 router into a $600 router

http://www.lifehacker.com/software/router/...uter-178132.php

[gunug]

Yeah, Kelly I saw that one yesterday; I think this is a much improved version of the one I'm using (Talisman).  I think someone was using a version of this to provide wireless to an entire community in little waterproof boxes.  Someone is doing it in Lawrence, Kansas (my home town) and I guess I'll have to look them up to see what they're doing/using.

[chriskleeman]

Wow, does that rock! As usual, if you need it, you'll probably find it in TS!

Thanks for all the info... I went with the Lynksis as my ISP seems to think that they've had way less problems interfacing with their ADSL BEC modem/router.

I'm looking forward to some hot-roddin'!

Chris K