Wireless network cards - What does 802.11g mean? and 54mbps?

[mkjuk]

What do these numbers mean - is it a case of the higher the better? and if so why?

[bobjim1705]

802.11g is the name of the wireless network protocol. (802.11b is the older version of 802.11)

54mb/s is the maximum transfer rate of the wireless network.

[fo3nix]

just to elaborate a little further...

802.11 is the standard for wireless internet connections. the 'g' at the end basically means that the maximum speed that piece of hardware supports is 54mbps. the 'b' ones support up to 12mbps. note though that your broadband internet will probably only be about 2mbps, so if you just want to share your broadband, you wont notice any difference between 'b' and 'g'. 'g' devices are backwards compatible with 'b' devices (they'll just work slower): if you have 3 'g' devices, including the router that provides the wireless signal, and you have one 'b' device on the wireless network, then the network will run at 'b' speed for all devices.

what does the mbps stuff mean? it stands for million bits per second. so that means that at full speed for 'g' types, the router and computer can transfer 54 million little bits of information every second. this sounds a lot, but a single character of text (like the letter 'a') is made up of 8 bits. a 1MB file is 8 million bits, etc.)

so yes, the 802.11g is the thing you want to go for, and that will have the number 54mbps by it too. the faster the better! but like i say, unless your internet connection is also at that speed, you wont notice a difference. and it almost certainly will not be.