# Wireless: 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g ?

## sharp

I'm considering deploying a wireless AP for me, myself and I (yes I have 3 computers for just me, and a personality to go along with each one), and am wondering which standard would give me the greatest throughput/range. 

The main purpose for this is to provide wireless access to my laptop. The largest deciding factor would be range and throughput. From what I've read 802.11b/g standards are the 2Ghz bandwidth and the 802.11a utalizes the 5Ghz as well as has a greater number of non-overlapping channels.

So, I pose this question to all of thou; would 802.11a standard give me the greatest throughput/range? Also would utalizing the 5Ghz frequency minimize interferance from cordless phones etc?

Cheers,

-js

----------

## 69link

Here in Sweden the 5GHz band is used by the military, so the output power by 802.11a equipment is very low. That results in a effective 10meter radius running 54mbit, dropping in speed very fast meter by meter.

I dont know about the US, but here I would go for 802.11g. But there are too many factors to say something general (like as you say: cordeless phones, neighbours and surroundning buildings).

Also 802.11g is cheaper  :Smile: 

----------

## adumare

If you are planning to use linux you better stick with 802.11b as it is the only standard that has usuable drivers current, there is an 802.11a driver but I believe it is RX only so it's not useable.

If you are not planning to use linux you need to take a look at all three of the standards, and probably try them all in your house.  I have an 802.11a network and it barly gets 50% signal strength from one end to the other of my house (my house is a fairly small bungalo).  I can also see 3 other 802.11b networks in my house all very low signal but they are from 3 or 4 houses away from me.   So it seems in my area b gets much greater range.  Personally I felt b was to slow to be usefull, but had I known a wasn't going to work with linux I would have gone with it.

Andrew

----------

## dasalvagg

802.11a is more secure because it does frequency hopping, but it has a shorter range.  this is because of the higher frequency(5Ghz), which doesn't travel as far.  However it is faster than 802.11b.  I dont remember off hand the speed of 802.11g.  However 802.11g and b work similarly in that they do not do frequency hopping and less secure.  b and g are more common too, so  if there are a lot of other wireless networks around you chances are you will have problems with overlapping channels.  802.11a is less used and in a clearer portion of the frequency spectrum.  You have a greater chance of a clear faster signal with 802.11a if you can deal with the shorter distance.  Only real way is to test them out in your house...walls, metal, water all kill signals so....you def want to test this out if you can.

----------

## fatcat.00

As Adumare already mentioned, 802.11a is not currently supported under Linux.  A driver is underway, but there are significant barriers to getting it working.

The company that makes the most common 802.11a chip -- Atheros -- doesn't release specs *and* it sicked its lawyers on the guy who is trying to develop driver without their permission.  

I made the unfortunate mistake of buying a 802.11a WAP, PCMCIA cards and PCI cards without first checking on the availability of drivers...my own stupid fault.

The development driver is available here:

http://team.vantronix.net/ar5k

----------

## Krin

802.11a isnt compatable with b or g is it?

----------

## christsong84

 *Krin wrote:*   

> 802.11a isnt compatable with b or g is it?

 

nope, although some base stations try and integrate the two.

----------

## adumare

I can one up you fatcat.00 I bought a 802.11a/b PCIMCA card and didn't check for support.  I doesn't even have a development driver yet.

DOH!

----------

## Genone

As already said I would check out for available drivers first. Then consider if you need compability with existing WLANs, which use mostly 802.11b at the moment. The main drawback with 802.11a is its incompability with 802.11b and 802.11g while the latte ones have limited compability (they can talk to each other, but 802.11g nets fall back to 11MBit/s for ALL clients). Personally I think that 802.11g is the best solution at the moment as it provides high speed with compability to existing WLANs.

Note that the promoted maximum speed of wireless networks is never reached, typical 802.11b networks come to about 500 Kb/s, and I've seen tests where 802.11g comes to about 2,5 Mb/s. Not seen tests for 802.11a though.

----------

## dasalvagg

Hes making a LAN at his home isn't he?  then he shouldn't be concerned with compatablity with other wirless networks.   Also you guys are completly forgetting about security.  If not done right, it is really easy to hop onto an 802.11b/g network.  If i was going to put up a wireless network and lived in a city with lots of other people around....i wouldnt do 801.11b/g  Dont forget about the lack of channel space for those configurations.  Companies have a hard time with this too...there are onle 3 non overlapping channels that can be run in the same space.  True there are 11 channels, but using channels 1 and 2 in the same physical area would kill your connection, might put you down at 1 Mbps.  802.11g is new...but i dont see it having much of a future.

----------

## Genone

 *dasalvagg wrote:*   

> Hes making a LAN at his home isn't he?  then he shouldn't be concerned with compatablity with other wirless networks.

 

He mentioned that he has a laptop, so I think compability might be important if he ever uses it outside his home. If he is sure that this won't be the case I agree that compability is a non-issue.

And for security, you should rather use encryption than the channel-hopping feature, even WEP should be more secure. If you're really for security the best solution is setting up a VPN, but this requires some work.

----------

