There are a few variables to consider. How far are they willing to travel from the source, and how fast is the broadband internet connection that you will be getting for them. I have road runner, and where I live it seems to be around 2.5-3 Mbits/second. This is one of the faster cable connections that I have heard of. Most of the time, your internet provider will cap you at a certain speed, which is what Time Warner has told me. Actually using a utility to measure how fast my internet is from time warner, I just reached 2930 Kbits/s and approx 357 KBs/s.
Therefore, if you were to live in the same area that I lived in, and had cable internet, you would NOT feel the difference between 802.11b and 802.11g while you are accessing the internet, given you are in the optimum transmit range of the router, while surfing online.
On the other hand, 2 computers connecting through a network and sharing files would be affected by the choice between 802.11b or g, due to to difference in speed.
Here is some technical information:
802.11b
802.11b has a range of about 50 metres with the low-gain omnidirectional antennas typically used in 802.11b devices. 802.11b has a maximum throughput of 11 Mbit/s, however a significant percentage of this bandwidth is used for communications overhead; in practice the maximum throughput is about 5.5 Mbit/s. Metal, water, and thick walls absorb 802.11b signals and decrease the range drastically. 802.11 runs in the 2.4 GHz spectrum and uses Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance (CSMA/CA) as its media access method.
With high-gain external antennas, the protocol can also be used in fixed point-to-point arrangements, typically at ranges up to 8 kilometres (although some report success at ranges up to 80-120 km where line of sight can be established). This is usually done to replace costly leased lines, or in place of very cumbersome microwave communications gear. Current cards can operate at 11 Mbit/s, but will scale back to 5.5, then 2, then 1, if signal strength becomes an issue. 802.11b divides spectrum in 14 overlapping, staggered channels of 22 megahertz (MHz) each. Different channels or ranges are legal in different countries. Three or four channels may be used simultaneously in the same area with little or no overlap (in the U.S. spectrum, these channels are 1, 6, and 11).
Extensions have been made to the 802.11b protocol (eg, channel bonding and burst transmission techniques) in order to increase speed to 22, 33, and 44 Mbit/s, but the extensions are proprietary and have not been endorsed by the IEEE. Many companies call enhanced versions "802.11b+".
802.11g
In June 2003, a third standard for encoding was ratified: 802.11g. This flavor works in the 2.4 GHz band (like 802.11b) but operates at 54 Mbit/s raw, or about 24.7 Mbit/s net, throughput like 802.11a. It is fully backwards compatible with b, and details of making b and g work together well occupied much of the lingering technical process. However, the presence of an 802.11b participant reduces an 802.11g network to 802.11b speeds.
The 802.11g standard swept the consumer world of early adopters starting in January 2003, well before ratification. The corporate users held back and Cisco and other big equipment makers waited until ratification. By summer 2003, announcements were flourishing. Most of the dual-band 802.11a/b products became dual-band/tri-mode, supporting a, b, and g in a single card or access point.
A new feature called Super G is now integrated in certain access points. These can boost network speeds up to 108 Mbit/s by using channel bonding. This feature may interfere with other networks and may not support all b and g client cards. In addition, packet bursting techniques are also available in some chipsets and products which will also considerably increase speeds. Again, they may not be compatible with some equipment.
source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/802.11b
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