how fast, and how far does wireless networking go?

[substance]

im looking into setting up my freinds house with a wireless network attacthed to broadband (roadrunner) and he has a desktop, laptop, and an xbox in the garage which is about 20-30 yards away from where the wireless transmitter will be located. will this wireless setup be alot slower than a wired network on a cable modem? or would DSL be the same speed since wireless has its limits? also, will i be able to hook the wireless network to the XBOX? it has a built in ethernet card with a rj-45 connection, is there a way to hook a wireless card to that? since you actually have to plug a cord into the xbox, and would the wireless network be fast enough to handle XBOX's needs for online gaming? sorry for all the ?'s all at once, my freind just needs this installed pretty soon.

 

[ktwebb]

Wired LAN's will be faster than wireless ones in virtually every circumstance, however with dsl and cable modems peaking at around 2-3 Mbps or less, that really doesnt matter. 30 yards may be cutting it pretty close though depending on what obstacles are in the path. ANy reflective material, metal duct work, rebar, filled concrete, large aquariums etc.., can cause severe RF attenuation. No way of telling how much real world throughput you'll get until you test the environment out. You will need an AP in some sort of client mode or a workgroup bridge to use the Xbox. A WGB is a wireless client that communicates with the AP wirelessly and has a RJ-45 jack to connect a wired ethernet device. Most are pretty expensive but many AP's can do the same thing. Still a pricey solution to hook up a console. If you can get a decent connection to the AP from all clients, then speed for online gaming shouldn't be an issue. With a 2 Mb cell coverage you should still not suffer noticeable lag from AP to client and have enough bandwidth to play games online.