Wireless Home Networking - Index of

Chapter 5: Choosing Wireless Home Networking Equipment
What you might have some anxiety about buying is some of the older “pre-N”
gear that some manufacturers are still offering. The time interval between the
completion of 802.11g (the last Wi-Fi standard) and the completion of 802.11n
has been relatively long (and still counting!). Because of this, a lot of manufacturers
launched pre-N gear in 2004 and 2005 to offer customers a taste of
what was coming. This gear is still on the market, and it works just fine —
providing faster speeds with other gear from the same manufacturer and
working as fully compliant 802.11g gear with equipment from other manufacturers.
But it won’t ever be 802.11n compliant despite the pre-N in the name.
The manufacturers we know tell us they’re still selling this gear because they
have stock on hand and because some folks have invested in it and want to
expand their networks. If you’re starting a new network, we don’t see any
reason to not just step up to 802.11n.
Some of this pre-N gear goes by other names such as MIMO or Super-G or
Turbo-G. Whatever the name, it’s souped-up 802.11g, and not 802.11n.
Compatibility and Form Factor
When choosing an AP, make sure that it and its setup program are compatible
with your existing components, check its form factor, and determine whether
wall-mountability and outdoor use are important to you:
� Hardware and software platform: Make sure that the device you’re
buying supports the hardware and software platform you have. Certain
wireless devices support only Macs or only PCs. And some devices support
only certain versions of system software. Luckily, most APs use a
Web browser for configuration, so they can work with any PC type and
any operating system that supports 802.11 and Web browsing.
� Setup program and your operating system: Make sure that the setup
program for the AP you plan to buy runs on your computer’s operating
system and on the next version of that operating system (if it’s
available — meaning if you’re using XP, look for Vista support too,
should you ever decide to upgrade). Setup programs run only on the
type of computer for which they were written. A setup program designed
to run on Windows doesn’t run on the Mac OS, and vice versa. Again,
most vendors are moving toward browser-based configuration programs,
which are much easier to support than stand-alone configuration utilities.
� Form factor: Make sure you are buying the correct form factor (that is,
the shape and form of the device, such as whether it’s external or a
card). For example, don’t assume that if you have a tower PC, you
should install a PCI card. It’s nice to have the more external and portable
form factors, such as a Universal Serial Bus (USB) adapter, because you
can take it off if you need to borrow it for something or someone else, or
if you just want to reposition it for better reception.
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