I ordered a USR 802.11g 'turbo' router (advertises 100mbps) along with a USR 802.11g PCI and a PCMCIA card. I figured I would upgrade my brother's computer and my laptop connection while I kept my roomates using their 802.11b cards.
After a week of nonreliability (we would get disconnected at random) and inability to share files (they would always time out), I have given up. I called USR and they walked me through sh!t like I was a dumbass. Then, they told me that sometimes I would have to unplug it and plug it again... release and renew ips... sometimes I would even have to reinstall the cards.. They basically told me that I should wait for firmware upgrades during the next couple of months to fix everything. The damn router would still disconnect us at random from the network (sometimes my roomates could access files while I couldn't.. sometimes vise-versa).
My 802.11b Linksys router never made me do that. It never times out. It never makes me reboot my computer or release/renew my IP.
Also, the speed difference was negligible. When I did finally get it to transfer a 600mb file, it took just slightly less than my 802.11b network.
So, from my experience, I would stick with 802.11b. I went back to it and I'll happily stay there.
After a week of nonreliability (we would get disconnected at random) and inability to share files (they would always time out), I have given up. I called USR and they walked me through sh!t like I was a dumbass. Then, they told me that sometimes I would have to unplug it and plug it again... release and renew ips... sometimes I would even have to reinstall the cards.. They basically told me that I should wait for firmware upgrades during the next couple of months to fix everything. The damn router would still disconnect us at random from the network (sometimes my roomates could access files while I couldn't.. sometimes vise-versa).
My 802.11b Linksys router never made me do that. It never times out. It never makes me reboot my computer or release/renew my IP.
Also, the speed difference was negligible. When I did finally get it to transfer a 600mb file, it took just slightly less than my 802.11b network.
So, from my experience, I would stick with 802.11b. I went back to it and I'll happily stay there.