802.11n doesn't go any farther than 802.11g??

[crazychicken]

I had a big job where I needed to cover a 20,000 sq.ft area, so naturally I said "hmm maybe this new "N" stuff will do the trick". After reading a bit, it seemed N would cover 1400sq.ft (radius) where G would only do 400. (Clearly these numbers are in "ideal" conditions, but i thought it should be roughly 3x more coverage).

So I bought a Linksys N router and some N express cards. Got to the site, tested the new router with an old laptop (with G) and found about where the signal died. Then I installed the new N cards and to my surprise it worked to exactly the same distance! I checked in the router, and it was on "mixed" and the manual said that meant it would do A,B,G,N. As far as I could see on the laptop, there was no choice of what to set the network card to, so i assumed it was on N (is there a way to check??)

Has any one else had the same problem? Or did I miss something?

Thanks,

David

 

[nightowl]

I never say that 802.11n will give you better range than A/G I do make it a point that you will receive more consistent coverage. By that I mean that you may have a dead area in your coverage pattern that will be better covered with 802.11n.

 

[crazychicken]

so are they just outright lying on the box??

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: crazychicken
so are they just outright lying on the box??

Of course they are. It's called marketing.

 

[Griffinhart]

It's not really lieing on the box. 11n typically does cover a wider area. My N router definately is a stronger and covers a wider area than my old G. The real problem is that N routers suffer the same weaknesses that all other wireless routers have. Signals get weaker with every Wall, Floor, door, Window, etc between the router and the PC. What's in the walls/floors also make a difference as well.

You may find that to reach every room in the house you will need to set up some sort of WDS (Wireless Distribution System) to cover dead areas. You may just be better off with trying an other solution as well. I recently used a set of Ethernet over powerline adapters on my friends Mom's network. Her G router just wouldn't get a decent connection to the room where her laptop was at.

 

[Old Hippie]

From what I've read, you don't get the real advantage of "N" unless your router is not in the mixed mode. Seems "N" and "G" don't play nice together. Keep your old router on "G" only, and the new one on "N" only.
That should help.

 

[Aarondeep]

Yeah its just marketing BS. There are alot of factors when using wireless across distances such as walls =)
Maybe look into a router that you can install something like DDWRT or Tomato firmware and crank up the transmit power. This is of course illegal according to the FCC....