The variation in distance coverage between Entry Level Cable/DSL Routers (and Access Points) is minimal (few feet give and take).
Either you start High (meaning more money) and buy a Professional set (Like the Cisco Aironet) or you play with multiple 802.11b and external Antennae.
No matter what no one can guess, you have to try.
May be this can Help.
Link to:
Extending the Distance of Entry Level Wireless Network.
BTW. In any case you better off 802.11g rather than 802.11b.
On Wireless:
802.11b vs. 802.11g.
For Internet surfing it does mot matter since Internet broadband connection is slower than 802.11b
For traffic across Internal LAN, 802.11g is significantly faster.
General Wireless info.
802.11b = 11Mb/sec. Network "Speed" (Carrier transmission 2.4GHz)
802.11g = 54Mb/sec. Network "Speed" (Carrier transmission 2.4GHz)
Wireless Ethernet needs additional protocol over head for the transfer. In addition, it is not as stable as Wired so it needs extra processing procedures.
As a result the 11Mb/sec. of the Network chipset is translated to a much lower actual performance. Usually 4-6Mb/sec.
Few 802.11b hardware units are also capable to work at 22Mb/sec.(usually referred to as b+) it is nice if it works, in real term will yield 20%-40% more than 11Mb/sec. systems.
The 802.11g line that is rated 54Mb/sec. in the real world it yields 18-22Mb/sec.
The differences between the first set of graphs to the second represent the performance differences between 802.11b to 802.11g. It might give you a good idea about indoor's distance coverage. Your actual distance might be different. Indoor coverage depends heavily on the envioroment; graphs like this should be used to understand the relation in performance between Wireless hardware. .
Link:
802.11a/b/g SOHO Routers & Access Points: Performance
To achieve the top of Entry Level Wireless performance (as of Sep; 2003) I would use a cheap Wired Router, and combine it with a 802.11g set of Access Point and Client Cards by either D-Link or Linksys. [/b]
