Any better 802.11 on the horizon?

[astroview]

802.11g is not that fast in real world usage and it has poor latency. Is anything better on the horizon?

 

[Lord Evermore]

Eventually coming, surely. On the visible horizon, not that I know of. 11g isn't even mainstream yet, and it's vastly faster than the common 11b.

 

[astroview]

I'm happy with my current 802.11b setup, but I'm a hardware lover who was just curious. That said, 54 megabits theoretical and 30 megabits real world is not enough.
And the latency just sucks heh.

 

[imgod2u]

802.11a actually has better sustained transfer rates (around 30 mbps) than g does (20 or so) so I guess that could be "the next big thing in wireless". After that, I'm not sure.

 

[Lord Evermore]

11a isn't the next big thing. 11g is essentially intended to be a replacement for both a and b. It runs at 54Mbps but is backward compatible with 11b. 11a has been a standard for some time but never became as popular as 11b, because it costs more and isn't backward compatible. 11g is still in draft form, and yet is being jumped on by manufacturers.

20 to 30Mbps throughput is far faster than the 4 to 6Mbps of 11b, and far faster than the 10Mbps wired LANs that some places still use. Sure it's not as fast as Fast Ethernet, but it's not yet designed to be a complete replacement; you give up some speed to gain the flexibility of a wireless setup. If speed is that important, you find a way to get the wires run.

 

[MrBond]

My cable modem maxes out at about 100k/sec downloading.

Using my laptop with my 802.11b card, I will often hit that maximum when downloading.

Good enough for me

 

[psy44]

In about 2 or 3 years, 802.11i will come out. I haven't heard much about it except that it will be much safer from hackers and whatnot.