There have been numerous questions on the mailing list as to which card is best.
Of 802.11b, two primary chipsets are used in its cards today. Prism based cards, and Hermes based cards.
The best card for general wireless networking: Lucent/Orinoco Silver/Gold. This card has very good signal sensitivity and has the widest freeware support. Although these cards generally have 30mW output, this is sufficient especially if you use an external antenna. Being that SeattleWireless doesn't use WEP,the silver card will work well. They have excellent receive sensitivity, and all (most?) of them sport an external antenna connector it's easy to find PigTails for. These use the Hermes chipset which software such as NetStumbler supports even in older Windows 98. In terms of "old" cards, the Lucent/Orinoco cards were significantly better than all the Prism chipset cards.
The other class of cards: Prism. Many different discounted cards are Prism 2.5 but Version 3 is the current one out there. Software such as NetStumbler supports prism cards in Windows XP and newer. Pros: You can use hostap under linux to setup a DIY AccessPoint. There is also a debug mode that lets you see raw 802.11b frames. Very cool if you know how to interpret raw data. The best performer in the Prism chipset group is the Senao of which two models have 200mW: SL-2511CD Plus with internal diversity antenna and SL-2511CD Plus EXT2 with two external MMCX connectors (no internal antenna). See SenaoCard for more. In terms of "old" cards, the Prism cards were inferior to the Lucent/Orinoco cards. However, with the advent of the modern Senao cards, the tables have been turned.
[Edit by PaulR 11/19/2003] Honestlly, the 'uber' card should be the SMC2532W-B card. It is a 200mw Prism card that has 2 RP-MMCX antenna connectors like the Senao(which uses 2 MMCX connectors), BUT has a built in antenna also - not like the Senao, where you get one or the other. It has slightly less receive sensitivity specs than the Senao, but at a price of around $55 compared to the higher Senao!? This should be clearly the winner here, I don't know why everyone is going crazy over the Senao cards?? [End Edit]
The 'uber' card: The overall uber card in my opinion is the Senao type which has excellent sensitivity and high output power. See SenaoCard for both card and antenna sources. (StartideRising)
Yet the 802.11b standard, however nostalgic the old schoolers might feel towards it, is hurtling at subsonic speeds toward imminent extinction as it caps out at 11MB. With 802.11G providing a (albeit theoretical) 54mbs cap 5x that of 11b, and a 802.11n standard looming by late '05 that provides up to 400mbs+ at Layer 1 (real speeds rather than theoretical in laymen speak), 802.11b looks to be a relic of the pioneering past.
For the here and now, there is 802.11g offering backwards compatibility to 11b at 54, and the up and coming 802.11a which offers much broader choice of channels in the less crowded 5 gig band, making it very useful to incorporating in the soon to be 802.11n standard.
For client cards that offer dual band b/g and tri-band a/b/g, atheros and conexant (formerly prism) chipsets have the market and between these two chipsets you could ultimately make your choice. Initially, it was the conexant based cards that had the best support, but with madwifi making great strides lately with AP mode, atheros makes it a much closer battle. Atheros based cards seem to almost dominate the triband a/b/g client adapter market, and on performance alone the chipset beats out Conexant Prism. Senao's aries minipci based on atheros ar5212 provides a strong uber card in this dept. On the other hand Conexant Prism has the advantage of being the staple cornerstone of the open source wifi community, as they've always topped the list of manufacturer's willing to share their source with the world. Such altruism is repaid handsomely in the form of the community providing the most mature of wireless drivers in existence in spite of hardware inferiority to their competitors in the dual and tri-band markets.
Q: A question regarding mW ratings and how they affect the quality of the card? There is a large range from 20 up to 200 mW. What difference does this make to the function of the card?
A: Milliwatts are the amount of power the cards transmit with. The higher the power, the easier it is for the other end to receive. Higher power does not equal higher quality. Antennas, pigtails, and cables make a huge impact on signal quality. Also, keep in mind that receive sensitivity also impacts the 'quality' of the card. If you compare a cheapo prism2 card (eg dlink - poor RX sensitivity) with a Lucent silver card (great RX sensitivity), you'll see that the lucent card will blow it out of the water. Note that these cards have the same (rated) mW output.
Q: Is higher power always better?
A: No. Most of the time, higher power is not necessary and is also undesirable. You only need enough power to make a good connection and 30mW is often enough for home use. Higher power means your signal goes out further and can thus interfere or be eavesdropped by someone else.
Keep in mind these are just simply opinions from a few Seattle wireless users. Feel free to update this page with other recommendations.
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If you have additional questions, consider asking them on the MailingLists.
... The Netgear MR814 router/access point has detachable antennae (comes w. +5dBi omnis) and uses rp-SMA - same as dLink. That took 1/2 an hour to India (outsourced customer support) to find out!
[Edited on Feb 25, 2004]Netgear MR814 has two versions. The newer version is smaller and has SPI firewall function which has a fixed antenna. The difference is the newer version with "True Firewall SPI and NAT protection" stated on the package box, and the bottom label of the router says MR814v2. [/Edit]</B>
