WIFI Performance and overhead

[thanny]

I am looking for some good documentation that explains the true speeds of WIFI, including the inherant overhead of 802.11x, the effect of enabling WEP etc etc.

I am trying to put together a document for our "higher" ups so they can fully understand what to expect when we switch an office over to an 802.11B network from a 100Mbs line.

Thanks

 

[iamadentist]

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,850929,00.asp

This is an interesting article that tested various 802 wireless devices. Their basic conclusion was the Cat 5 100 actually runs at about 85 and 11b runs at 5 and 11g runs at 26.

For whatever it's worth, my experience is consistent with these results. I have two desktop computers in my office which are wired together using Cat 5 and I have a wireless portable using 11a. The initial loading of the dental program takes say 1 unit of time on the computer on which the program is mounted, it takes 2 to 3 on the other wired computer and literally takes 10 on the 11b portable.

Unless you are very patient, 11b is ideal only for web surfing.

 

[manarth]

Iamadentist: "Unless you are very patient, 11b is ideal only for web surfing."

Can I have your broadband connection please?
It must be pretty fast to outrun 5 MBps!

Seriously, if you're genuinely getting 5 Mbps on 11b, surely this is 10x faster than the typical BB?

This being the case, does anyone know of a latency issue with wireless which significantly reduces throughput? <marc>[ul]help us help![li]please provide feedback on what works / doesn't[/li][li]not sure where to start? click here: faq581-3339[/li][/sup][/ul][/sup]