Dwl-810+ 802.11b AP

[mc866]

I have this old AP sitting around not being used and I'm working on a project to get streaming media to other places in my house and could possibly utilize this. Was looking into just getting a new g router cause they are so cheap right now but if I am able to use this it's even cheaper, free!!! Anyway at some point I thought I had read somewhere that wireless signal will only run as fast as the slowest device in the network, is this true? I have a DGL-4300 g router and a laptop and wii utilizing the wireless signal.

 

[JackMDS]

Whatever connected to the 802.11b AP would connect at 802.11b.

Otherwise (if the other device are good) the rest should work OK at its designated Speed.

 

[mc866]

Cool, got it! So what is "normal" actual recognized bandwidth over b, the device says up to 22mbs, but I was hoping for 5 or so. Is this reasonable?

 

[spidey07]

It's true that 802.11g will slow down if there are any 802.11b clients in the area. It's about half the expected throughput of 22 Mbs that G gets. Most all people don't force 802.11g mode anyway.

So if you use it as a workgroup bridge then yes, your overall wireless throughput will drop for all clients. You should be able to get around 5-6 Mbs throughput out of b but you won't know until you try as wireless is very flaky and unreliable.

 

[kevnich2]

802.11b is...slow. A lot of broadband speeds now are faster than B speeds. For general web browsing, it'll be fine. If your trying to file share locally, well, it'll take awhile. You'd be better just purchasing a G access point or wireless router and disabling DHCP and using it as an AP.

 

[Madwand1]

A problem with most 802.11b devices is that they don't support modern encryption such as WPA2 or even WPA. WEP is very easily broken these days and is regarded as effectively unsecure. I personally don`t use or recommend WEP devices for this reason, after having observed a WEP-128 installation that I`d set up broken into a few years ago.

 

[JackMDS]

If the 802.11b device states 22mb/sec it is one of the propriety 802.11b+, it would provide better speed only if the Wireless client is a matching 802.11b+ too (D-Link use to make many of them).

The issue of 802.11b reducing 802.11g when present is very variable.

It depends on the location of the second device and on the 802.11g chipset version and date.

The 802.11g of later dates are much less vulnerable and if the 802.11b is further away it probably would not affect the whole Network (I had until few weeks ago an 802.11b AP at about 40 feet from an 802.11g and it did nothing to the 802.11g).

However it is all a matter of trying, there is a good chance that it would behave as I indicated in my first post since your main Router is relatively new.

 

[spidey07]

Jack - it's a function of 802.11g. When a b client is in the cell or associated it has to switch gears/modulation to support it. This eats up a ton of timeslots on the carrier lowering dramatically the speed for ALL clients. Take a sniff sometime of wireless and see how much management frames are thrown around constantly - when these have to use 802.11b modulation it kills performance.

If the b client is further away it actually makes it much worse.

 

[JackMDS]

Spidey you are right when the 802.11b is a client that communicates with the 802.11g source.

My understanding of the OP is that he wants to add another AP, not a Wireless client to the main Router.

If the plan is to use the 802.11b AP as a Wireless client to the 802.11g, then what ever I posted before is irrelevant.

 

[mc866]

Guys is there a test or tool I can use to measure the true bandwidth I'm getting from my laptop, I kinda want to test things and see if I'm getting decent throughput, the main goal of this is to stream movies to a tv via xbmc so I'm thinking it may be to slow anyway.

That being said are there more affordable options for wireless g routers that do DD-WRT than the WL-520gU or the WGR614L??

 

[kevnich2]

Stream movies? I thought you wanted to stream music. No way 802.11b is going to be enough even in perfect conditions. 802.11G is ok for standard movies. 802.11N can stream HD movies. As far as wireless G routers, the 520Gu is already pretty cheap, you have to leverage quality with price sometimes. Remember, you get what you pay for.

 

[mc866]

That's what I figured, how about something to test the speed?

 

[JackMDS]

http://www.ezlan.net/faq.html#qcheck