Greg -- Greg Freemyer On Tue, Aug 13, 2013 at 12:20 PM, James Knott <james.knott@rogers.com> wrote:
Greg Freemyer wrote:
If I don't care about speed, just reliability and range, does it matter what Nxxx I get?
I'm not familiar with those, so I don't know what the differences are.
A quote from the web: == The 802.11n standard defined multiple "streams", or you can think of them as channels, each being capable of up to 150Mbps (theoretical).
From this spawns the N150, N300, N450, N600, N750, N900... meaning MIMO, multiple radios/antennas.
The catch being that most client network adapters have only a single antenna/radio, and are N150, there are only a few N300 NICs out there. With that said, you probably won't see much difference, unless you're using your client devices simultaneously, in which case they may pick up different streams from the router. In other words your router may be capable of N750, but not necessarily your clients, the benefit is better multi-tasking, higher range, possibly beamforming and other advances in the N750 router. == I've bought 2 N routers in the last few months. Both claimed that the bigger Nxxx numbers had better range. The sales guy I talked to at MicroCenter said the ASUS N900 is supposed to have the best range of anything they sell. (It's over $200 for that router). What I don't know is why the N900 has better range. It is inherent to the N900 spec, or is it because they simply build them better since they can sell them for more. Also since the N900 can do 5 simultaneous streams, it is better for a small business setup, so maybe they figure a small business would need more range, so they build it better for that reason. I sort of understand the above, my question is what kind of USB transmitter is going to be the most reliable / have the most range. <research> ... <\research> Okay, I found this N900 USB adapter at Amazon. If you scroll to the bottom you can see they clearly say the N900 has the best range of the NetGear N series USB adapters. Now the question is it costs $50, or I could buy a range N600 range extender for $80. <http://www.amazon.com/Netgear-N900-Wireless-Adapter-WNDA4100/dp/B006V72AE0/ref=pd_sxp_grid_pt_1_2> <http://www.amazon.com/Netgear-Universal-Range-Extender-WN2500RP/dp/B006V72AHC/ref=pd_bxgy_pc_text_z> Anyway, we can drop this thread. It helped a lot to think about restricting the router to G or N or both. I didn't realize I had that option. Greg -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org