Network Speeds

foreright · 5 Sep 2009 at 08:36

Can someone take 5 minutes to explain to me something. I was in high street retailer yesterday on the look out for a laptop. The assistant said to look for one with the new N techology because of the faster transfer rate.
As I am on Virgin Media 20Gig BB and have a 5yr+ Netgear wired router I had to question the need for the new technology.
I was told that the transfer rate for my existing router is only max 54Mb sec. Yet if I was to add say a N technology network card to my PC and buy a new N WiFi router my data transfer would be greatly increased.
I am very confused as I have done many BB speed tests that show on average that my BB speed is 18Gig - very near my 20Gig advertised.
Can you explain in simple terms is that correct and what exactly is the 54 Mbit speed referring to on my wired router.
Is it nonsense I was being fed. Many thanks in advance.

xb8browney · 5 Sep 2009 at 08:53

Your 20Mb would see no benefit from a N spec router.

a N spec router should see transfer speeds of 130Mbit/s but this would only be seen when transferring files over your home network.

Someone should be along soon with a better explanation

leoncc · 5 Sep 2009 at 08:53

the 'n' is the new wifi tech with speeds upto 300mbps depending on signal strength and house layout etc, distance is improved as well, and better wifi security wpa2 etc compared to the old 'g' wifi tech which is 54mbps iirc?

foreright · 5 Sep 2009 at 09:07

Sorry to be ungrateful, but. I do not get the corelation between my VM 20 Gig BB service, me getting 18 Gig and the 54Mb/s speed that my Netgear router is limited to. Can someone explain / convert the figures so that I am more familiar with speeds. Cheers.

BunnYPandA · 5 Sep 2009 at 09:16

yes it is nonsense if the assistant told you that you would get faster internet if you bought a wireless N router or laptop. the only increase you may see if in file transfers between computer to another computer on the network.

someone should also point out that your virgin BB is 20Mbps (not 20Gig) so if the bandwidth on your local connection between your computer and router is 54Mbps, and your internet connction is less than that (20Mbps) then your router is fully capable of providing you with more than twice the bandwidth available of your internet connection

leoncc · 5 Sep 2009 at 09:24

Apologies for not abrieviating properly

explained what I could, though your right its 20m/bit not 20g/bit.

gillywibble · 5 Sep 2009 at 09:41

As above, The N technology refers to wireless transfer rates on your network, nothing to do with your broadband synchronization speed.

Daegan · 5 Sep 2009 at 09:47

For a bit of future-proofing getting a laptop with wireless N isn't a bad idea. For instance if you were to upgrade to VM's 50mb service during the lifetime of the laptop then you'd want it to have wireless N. But suggesting that along with the laptop you should buy a wireless N router, as well as a card for your PC, is just him overselling and trying to boost his sales figures.

foreright · 5 Sep 2009 at 12:18

OK, for a start, thank you for all your replies. If I understand rightly then. As corrected previously, my VM BB is 20mb/s which is well within the capabilities of my G tech router specced at 54mb/s.
The advantage of N tech wifi is only to increase data transfer between 2 PC's within a network from a possible 54 - 200 kb/s. Which I assume is something that gamers would benefit only if playing between themselves in the same house but not across networks in different houses as the restriction there would be at the mercy of BB speed.
Is that correct.

Saundie · 5 Sep 2009 at 12:30

foreright said:
OK, for a start, thank you for all your replies. If I understand rightly then. As corrected previously, my VM BB is 20mb/s which is well within the capabilities of my G tech router specced at 54mb/s.
The advantage of N tech wifi is only to increase data transfer between 2 PC's within a network from a possible 54 - 200 kb/s. Which I assume is something that gamers would benefit only if playing between themselves in the same house but not across networks in different houses as the restriction there would be at the mercy of BB speed.
Is that correct.

54mbps is the theoretical speed of 802.11g; distance from the router and interference will result in that rate going down significantly. 802.11g is fine if you remain on the 20Mbit/s Virgin Media service, but could become a bottleneck should you upgrade to the 50Mbit/s service. Moving to 802.11n would go a long way to alleviate the bottleneck. This is essentially what Daegan was trying to get across to you.

802.11n would also be beneficial if you transfer large files across your wireless network, allowing you to transfer at ~300Mbit/s which I suppose is around 30 megabytes/second, rather than the 54Mbit/s (5.4 megabytes/second) of 802.11g.

Edit: in terms of what the salesman told you, he was trying to upsell you via the age old method of deception