What does the MB speed do?

So people talk about speed, as in 54 MBPS (megabytes per second)? and 300 MB etc etc.

What exactly is the difference? What will more MBPS do for you?

According to my wireless properties, my speed is currently at 300 MBPS in Vista on my Macbook Pro. I have a Wireless N router but I do not recall setting up the N feature. I cannot tell a difference in speed than when I'm on school campus which is not wireless N.

So what's the big deal? Is it if you have more MBPS, you will download faster? Overall web browsing does not seem to benefit much from high MBPS...

 

Web browsing is gonna be limited by your connection to your ISP (Internet Service Provider.) School probably has a T1 or T3, maybe even faster. At home you probably have Cable or DSL with 10Mbps upload and 700k download speed, or similar. Each of those services are more than good enough to browse the internet, which is why you might not notice a difference between the two.

54Mbps or 300Mbps (megabits per sec) is only going to increase file transfer speeds over the network (not internet) for the most part.

When I say from the network I mean if you were transferring a movie from your desktop computer at your home to your MBP it would be faster than transferring one while your on campus over wifi. Another factor though is whether or not the computer you are pulling files from or streaming from has gigabit or fast ethernet. gigabit is 1000Mbps and fast is 100mbps. For example if you're on your N router and your desktop only has fast ethernet (100Mbps) the max speed you can reach is 100, which will still be faster than G but slower than if your desktop connection was faster.

So really is it the weakest link that will be the determining factor on how fast you can do whatever. For web browsing you brobably wouldn't even noticed a difference if you connected to a wireless B router (11Mbps.) The weakest link for that will be your ISP, which most now are easily sufficient for just browsing.

One thing wireless N will give you that G won't is a lot more range.

If that made no sense then feel free to ask what I would need to clarify, maybe someone else can point out some things better as well.

 

54 Mbps (mega bits per second) translates to about 6.75 MBps (mega bytes per second). 300 Mbps translates to 37.5 MBps. The N connection is a little more than five times faster than G, but as Nate points out, there are lots of limiting factors and choke points, such as the speed of your ISP connection and the type and speed of connection of other computers on the network.

To get some idea of the difference, if you had ideal conditions and wanted to move a 37 Megabyte file from a computer on your network to your laptop, it would take about 1 second with an N connection and about 5 seconds with a G. This would add up if you had several gigabytes to download, and your ISP was offering 300Mbps service, otherwise you wouldn't see a lot of noticeable difference just browsing.

 

Yes. The higher the average speed the faster you'll get there.

Thats because the sites amount of data is small it gets download to your comp in a instant. Try surfing into a forum/site with lots of pictures. Try a screenshot thread on the forum(not one with thumbnails post)

 

So Wireless N really comes down to if you do a lot of transferring of files over the network in your home, and visiting content heavy websites?

The only thing I am interested in is the increased range and strength of the signal, obviously Wireless N computers will benefit from that. But what about Wireless G computers? Will they benefit from a stronger signal or increased range?

 

Let me put it like this, N can yell a lot farther than G. So sometimes a computer with G will see/hear an N router but can't yell that far back to it to actually continue communication. So G computers will not benefit from the range on an N router. I'm not sure if it will benefit with signal strength or not....

 

So basically my MBP with wireless N and the wireless N router will be the best in terms of signal strength and range and download speeds (depending on ISP)?

 

Yea any computer with an N card and your router will be faster than an N/G laptop/router combination.
Download speed would probably be the same on a G laptop though.
Really its just range and network transfer speeds that will be boosted from the N/N combination.

Can I ask why you ask? Do you plan on getting another computer with just G or something? Just curious.

 

There are 2 other desktops in my house that have G cards in them and I was just wondering if it was worth upgrading to N in them. But since I do very little network transfers, I dont think I will upgrade them.

Another question...
My current router is the Linksys wrt300N (alien like looking thing), and I see there is a new one, the wrt310N (very sexy looking). The 310 is a gigabit router, whereas mine (300N) is a broadband router. What is the difference and which router is better?

 

I compared them on Newegg and really see no difference except the gigabit.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...mpareItemList=N82E16833124068,N82E16833124276
Those are the two we are talking about right?

The 310N looks like it might just be a little bit newer, also it weights less according to them (11.99 oz. compared to 1.2 lbs on the 300N.)

All that gigabit will do for you at your house is speed up file transfers over your network, up to 1000Mbps if both computers are plugged into this router AND also have gigabit NICs on them. NIC is Network Interface Card, it's what you plug your ethernet or network cable into on the desktop. Since you mentioned you have 2 running on G I would assume that none are plugged directly into your router but are there any? If so this would only benefit those plugged into the router and only if they also had gigabit NICs...

It would also benefit in the case you were transferring a file from a computer with a gigabit port that was plugged into the router over wireless N, up to 300Mbps. It would allow you to surpass the 100Mbps that the 300N has on it. That is only if you have those computers plugged into it.

To sum this up the only difference I saw was the gigabit ports (1000Mbps) over the fast ethernet (100Mbps) ports on the back to plug in computers directly to it. Which will have no bearing on your network as long as all your computers are wireless.

For you, unless you just wanted a router that looks cooler, I would say these will serve the same purpose.

 

Thank you so much nate, you really helped a lot. In that case I will stick with my 300N.

Looks like wireless N isnt all that much better, at least compared to how much hype was directed towards me (from coworkers and friends). They probably dont even know what wireless N means.

Also, when you get your T61p post a review of some pictures, focusing on its relative size. I really want to see how big that thing is, because I am also considering buying a similar machine.

Thanks alot.

 

No problem, glad I could help.

If you talk to people at work or friends again ask why they were hyping it so much. Personally I will be using N whenever I can but I have a central computer to store all my music/movies/tv shows etc and will be streaming them from all over the house.

I will at least let you know how it is when I receive my T61p, I just ended up making my sig now out of boredom

I know joe and some others have posted some reviews with pics and stuff lately, I will see if I can find the ones I'm talking about.

Here is one, start scrolling down on this page:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=223337&page=5

Here is another one:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=234636

And some pictures here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=133137&page=2

I will compare the size to some laptops that are here when I receive mine too.

 

The distance of 11n is no greater than a good 11g with both use the MIMO technology. Infact test have showed when it comes to distance the 11g holds it speed better, while 11n drops off greatly. If you think about it, they both have the same power rating (milli-watts), same MIMO tech antenna system they should be the same. Now there are a lot of users with 11g hardware that does not use the MIMO tech. To these it would appear they get a greater distance. The only advantage as to being a beta tester right now is all of the bugs you need to deal with. The 5 ghz band is where you will see the most gain due to it's less crowded and will beable to use the 40mhz wide band. The spec address playing well with others, so wide band in the 40 will not happen often, depending on where your located. The base 11n spec currently only covers the base connection <130 mbps. The speeds above it the mfg are currently doing their own thing right now. This is why some HW works and other do not. It is said that there will be a spec that all hardware (mfg) play well with each other. It did not happen with 11g so don't hold your breath on this one. This is one of the areas that mfg have had trouble agreeing on. MFG are in the business of selling hardware, so there is NO real incentive to have all the same. They want you to buy the matching cards. Currently this is the only way to get 300mbps reliable.

That's my 2 cents. If you find something that works for you use it.