wireless-b and wireless-g?

Question

I just purchased a Linksys wireless-b pc card for my dell inspiron, but I was noticing that all of the linksys I see on the dell website are wireless-g.  I was just wondering what the difference is, although it is probably something very obvious, and I am wondering if this will affect whether or not my computer will be able to connect with a wireless connection.  My inspiron is windows xp, and it was purchased in 2002.  I do not have a router yet, so I am going to bring my computer to a place where there is a wireless connection so I can try it out.

bacillus · Answer

the b rated cards transfer data slower than the g (54Mbps) cards.

rwm32 · Answer

A properly compliant 802.11g router should be backwards-compatible with the 802.11b standard -- check the box!  You should be able to set the router to run only b, if yours is the only PC connecting to it. That should ensure the best performance.   To add to what bacillus says: b runs at max 11Mbps. Message Edited by rwm32 on 06-19-200612:02 PM

Entropy42 · Answer

@rwm32 wrote:

A properly compliant 802.11g router should be backwards-compatible with the 802.11b standard -- check the box! You should be able to set the router to run only b, if yours is the only PC connecting to it. That should ensure the best performance.

To add to what bacillus says: b runs at max 11Mbps.

Message Edited by rwm32 on 06-19-200612:02 PM

Note that while it's impossible to find an 802.11g router that does not have 802.11b backwards compatibility, the router administrator CAN explicitly disable this feature for performance reasons. As a result you may be better off returning the b-only card (I'm surprised you were even able to find b-only hardware at this point in time) and buy an 802.11g capable card.

klbf · Answer

i agree, you'll get a greater performance conpared to wifi b which is 11mbit compared to wireless g

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wireless-b and wireless-g?

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