Tong Family

802.11 Wireless Home Network Recommendations. The new 802.11a at 72Mbps is coming out. Quite a few folks have been asking me about it. Right now for most homes I’d recommend that you get a low cost 802.11b solution for right now. My buddy Tom Hatsukami was asking and wanted to buy NetGear, so here are recommendations in the NetGear line. I’ve personally used both Linksys and D-link and haven’t had any horror stories, but the advice holds no matter which low end you use. Here is the hardware I’d get…

1. NetGear MR314 Cable/Wireless router with 4-port hub at $99 MR314 on Pricegrabber for the price.
2. NetGear LAN Card is 802.11b LAN Card at $52

Here’s why, I’d vote the other way, other folks might differ, but here’s Rich’s POV:

1. It won’t be faster for you. 802.11a is much faster at 72Mbps but your DSL connection is probably running at 256kbps (about 20x slower), so you won’t see it any faster than an 802.11b 11Mbps connection. You need additional bandwidth if you have a server or lots of PCs, but that’s not true in the home usually, except for maybe at The Ludwigs.
2. Overall 802.11a is twice the price. It is expensive the prices are much higher for both the wireless router and also for the cards themselves. As an example, shows it at $204 for the HE102, and the equivalent adapter is $90 at 802.11b adapter price.
3. HE102 is not the right device for you. You want a wireless router, not a wireless access point, so that you have multiple PCs connected to your DSL. I don’t see that NetGear has a combined 802.11a access point plus router, so you’d need to buy two boxes.
4. The HE102 is “single” mode 802.11a, so that means it won’t work with any of the more popular and earlier device (called 802.11b–don’t ask me why the b comes before an a, but that’s the way that it is), so if someone comes over they likely won’t be able to connect