Difference between Airport & Airport Extreme?

T

thendis

Registered
hello again. I have today bought two airport cards. An Airport for my iBook G3 and an Airport EXTREME for my newer eMac.

I understand there is a speed difference, but how much of a difference?

All I will really be using them for is to access my broadband internet. So just need to know will the slower, regular Airport card be quick enough to handle 512k DSL internet, or will it be slower than a direct ethernet connection (or an extreme card).

Sorry if these are stupid questions, as i said in an earlier post...i'm new :)
 
As i understand it, airport is 802.11b, which is 11megabits per second. The airport extreme is 802.11g, which can handle 54megabits/s. That means the extreme is around 5 times faster. That said, both can easily handle your broadband which is half a megabit per second.
For comparison, your ethernet will probably be 100megabits/s. I don't have airport so i can't tell you how it works in reality, but i think you'll only notice the difference when you are transferring files between machines rather than accessing the net.
 
In practice, you'll get much less than the rated 11 mbps or 54 mbps. Reason being is that the bandwidth is shared by all the machines, so if you have 2 machines connected to an 11mbps network, each machine will only get 5.5 mbps. 4 machines and you'll get 2.75 mbps, and so on. If you have mainly 54mbps machines and just one 11mbps machine, the whole network will work at 11 mbps and so all the machines will get 11mbps to share. That's why you don't mix these machines unless completely necessary.

But for broadband, that should be fine.
 
A wireless lan accesspoint (no matter if 11mbit or 54mbit or even 108mbit) works like a switch. When you have just one wireless machine, it will get the full bandwidth. However, still you will never reach the gross 11mbit or 54mbit. The reason lies, iirc, in the protocol that will give you something like 5-7mbit for your own data. The rest will be "wasted" for the protocol which is needed to assure a stable connection.
But as Viro said, 5-7mbit for the 802.11b standard are more than enough for most broadband connections.
 
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