[Ti] Netgear vs. Airport

[Paul Russell]

>It's not as bad as some of those articles would have you believe; 
>for one thing, if the 802.11b devices aren't using the wireless 
>network, there won't be any slowdown.  The slowdown happens only 
>while b devices are *actively* sending or receiving data, and it 
>happens because every device must wait slightly longer after a b 
>signal is sent than they'd wait after a g signal is sent before 
>another data signal can be sent.

Yabbut the b devices will still tend to suck up the available 
bandwidth - probably no big deal on a lightly loaded network but 
could be a nuisance on a moderately busy mixed network.

>As far as the draft standard, I'm not sure that there are likely to 
>be any changes; but if there are, pretty much every device 
>(including Airport Extreme) will be firmware-upgradeable to utilize 
>the finalized standard.  One problem with the early release of 
>802.11g, however, is that the devices aren't 100% optimized yet; 
>later firmware updates should increase their efficiency, giving 
>better throughput.
>

That's an optimistic view - I hope you're right... ;-)

Paul

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