802.11g Handheld WiFi Module Announced

The advantage of 802.11g is probably the 6Mbps at 100 meters aspect, not the 54Mbps at 10 meters aspect.

802.11g might not play on a basic PDA, but it would be very welcome in the new class of portable media centers -- you can use it for high-speed transfer of video and audio files; think of a Palm OS "iPod" with a 40GB media archive on it and a 640x480 landscape screen that could also serve as a client for video feeds off your home digital video recorder.

--
Ben Combee
http://palmos.combee.net - PDA programmer weblog

The main reason I would want G on my handheld is for security. I don't want to have to resort to insecure B (therefore opening up my network and resulting in a slower connection speed). G works best when all the devices are the same type. Some cheap routers/APs won't even let you run G with security and B, which would require a second AP just for my handheld. Or I could just upgrade my AP, but it's just easier to have G in the device from the start.

One very good reason is to maintain consistency: When I installed an 802.11g network at home, I set it to "G-only" mode locking out all 802.11b traffic. This both improves my throughput and provides less conflict with nearby 802.11b networks. If I had an 802.11g card in my Tungsten T3, it would fit into my 802.11g network seamlessly. If I used an 802.11b card, I would have to reset my AP's to allow for 802.11b traffic decreasing performance and potentially conflicting with surrounding 802.11b networks.

802.11g is nothing more than a way for Wi-Fi manufacturers to eeke out a little more profit in a product market that is quickly chasing a race to zero profitibility.

The scam of G is that it doesn't get anywhere near 54 MB/s (other than meaningless burst speeds) and the "Turbo" claims of 108 MB/s are pure fantasy.

My company recently tested G PCMCIA cards (Linksys Enterprise Class) against the best, industrial B cards (Cisco and Horizons) and here is roughly what we found:
(tested in an office buidling that is a nightmare to cover wirelessly, like many other buildings)

At 10 feet from the router:
G Card - 10.2 MB/s (sustained throughput)
B Card - 5.1 MB/s

At 50 feet from the router (down the hall, same floor):
G Card - 512 kb/s
B Card - 3.8 MB/s

At 150 feet from the router, on the next floor down:
G Card - No signal
B Card - 470 kb/s

Now, if you stay within 20-30 feet of your router, then G offers some speed advantages. Go further than that and you have less throughput, and a less reliable signal.

Combine that with the fact that most if not all hot spots are B, and will be for some time, spending additional money on G products is nonsense, in my opinion.

If security is your concern, you better not hook any wireless network to your internal servers. Our IT people install separate lines for Wi-Fi and then allow access to the corporate network only through a secured VPN.

"My company recently tested G PCMCIA cards (Linksys Enterprise Class) against the best, industrial B cards (Cisco and Horizons) "

Alas you don't give enough information to tell if the test was done correctly. In my link above, you'll see that simply associating an 802.11b client to an 802.11g access point, will drop your 11g performance. But actually download data over 11b, and indeed your throughput as seen by the 11g clients can drop *below" that of the 11b clients.

You really need to keep the 11b clients off your 11g network to preserve your throughput, and thus 11g chipsets for PDA's is nothing but a good thing.

"The main benefit would be when you are using multiple/many devices on the same access point. AFAIK, that 54Mbps is shared across all the clients, so when you get 10-20 devices competing for bandwidth, it'll be nice."

Take another look at our test results. We were never able to achieve anywhere near 54 Mbps of sustained data with ONE user. What you will have is a few users close to the AP who may get 11 Mbps, with the other users who are further away getting less than 1 Mbps.

An enterprise class B system will outperform that, when you look at average sustained throughput for all users.

cbowers wrote: "Others with Real World tests beg to differ though. See 22+Mbps here:
http://www.tomsnetworking.com/Sections-article42-page8.php"

Actually, this note was down the page a little:
"All the following tests were taken under best-case signal conditions, with AP / router and client about five feet apart. WEP was not enabled for any tests."

This is hardly real-world testing, unless you never get more than 5 feet away from the router.

This is the problem I have with all the tests I have seen - They all focus on throughput. Wireless communications is more about DISTANCE than it is about throughput. Show me 10 or 20 MB/s at 300 feet inside of a building and I will be impressed. Five feet away from the router is an absurd way to test these devices, kind of like testing the suspension on a car at 1 MPH...

Yes, good wireless communications is about a combination of distance and throughput, but if you have no connection, it doesn't matter how much throughput your AP or client is rated at - zero is zero.

My point, which maybe I didn't state very well, is that for the ideal wireless protocol, in which you get decent, useable throughput at long distances from the AP, 802.11G is not it. Maybe it's WiMAX, maybe it's something else, but I know that today I can get better range and better throughput at distance with B than I can with G - So why would I buy G, regardless of cost?

Doesn't it bother you just a little that these companies tout 54 MB/s and 104 MB/s when there is no way that you can ever get sustained, useable throughput at even half that rate? This is false advertising in its truest sense, and everytime a story like this one appears which talks about 54 MB/s, the lie gets that much larger.

>cbowers - The engineers doing the testing are RF engineers, these were real world tests. When the G cards were tested, no other cards were on that network.

Boy, that test results is ZERO information here.

I will tell you my story:

About 1.5 years ago (2 Christmas ago) I bought a whole whack of wireless stuff for my home. A few cards for some pc’s, and two PCMCIA cards for notebooks. I thought oh boy…wifi everywhere in my home. and no wiring. So, I un-packed my Linksys b router.

OF course, I tested my notebook, and realized that the whole thing is a complete and utter joke. I could barely go up one floor, and any moving to another room that was NOT above the location of the LinkSys routing in the basement would NOT prove a signal at all. What a joke.

Fast forward to this Christmas. Hum, gee a new 54 g standard. Perhaps if I get 1/5th of the connection at a longer distance. then at least it would be useable. Up to this point, wifi reception to me was complete joke.

Wow, tried this system, and 2 floors up and as far as I could get away from the box, and I was getting a 60% signal strength…enough for the card to pull in the full 54 g speed (I don’t know what the actually transfer speed would be, but this card was showing full speed virtually anywhere in the house).

Why was G so much better then B I asked? Well, the answer was simple:

99% of PCMCIA notebook cards have 100% pure crap antennas. One week later I was at clients office. I turned on my notebook, and low and behold. I was getting a wifi signal from a engineering firm (through the next business condo, and from accross the parking lot. Again, my wifi card was report a full speed signal. My friend seeing this pulled out his notebook, and shoved in his wifi card. Result? Zero signal!

He had some no-name no-brand card. I showed him how well my card pulled in that signal. (and, to be sure…I actually installed his drivers..and shoved in his card in my computer..and the result was the same…noting close to a useable signal). I told him his card was crap.

We went down to the store to purchase a card like mine. There were none left of my brand..so I though. well, it is 1.5 years later, and the liksys card could NOT be that bad like they were. He purchased the card..and went back to the office. Again, the Links card performance was crap.

So, when those engineers put in the G card, they were not testing how good, or bad the G network signal was…all they tested was the fact that the g-cards are crap compared to the b-cards! (gee, talk about stupid engineers). That test should have had the wifi router/access point set to b standard..and then test. You then change the router/access point to g standard..and test again (but DO NOT CHANGE cards on the notebook (the g cards have dual ability…do they not? Most card have both b and g ability..so why did they change cards? How dumb!) Further, perhaps a cordless phone, or some other wireless devices like the security system were using the g frequency also? Did they try changing the channel used??? Again..very bad test!).

Again..*really* stupid to conclude that the g signal does not work. How do you know it was not the PCMCIA card that was crap (by the way, all notebook PCMCIA network cards I have tried are crap expect the us-robotics one I finally got. I went and purchased another us-robotics card. and it also performs super.

So, with the crap cards. I could barely getaway from the rounter..with good cards...the signal worked EVERYWHERE in my home without even a drop in performance.

All, I repeat ALL of the other cards I have tried do not even COME CLOSE and ARE NOT ON THE SAME planet when compared to this card.

The Linksys card I tested was WPC54G-CA, and it was crap (I tested two of them).

I also tested a few other no-brand names I can’t remember.

I then tried the U.S. Robotics card. Simply put, AMAZING. In most cases where the other cards had a ZERO SIGNAL, the U.S. Robotics was at FULL STEENGHT.

I am not kidding…the difference is that much. The US Robotics card was $8 more then the liksys cards.

So, I switched to G. I have a liksys router (54g), and it works really good. If you must use PCMCIA cards…get the us.Roboties one. (USR5410 802.11g card). It says it is rated at 100mips on the front of the card……but really who cares!. The real issue is that when all the other cards did not even pull in signals this one was at full bandwidth.

Did those supposed engineers test a few different cards…or just perhaps a PCMCIA card that was crap? The differences here is likely the antenna. In all of the PCMCIA cards that I tested that worked like crap, the antenna was the SAME size, height (thickness) as the pcmpia card. (this would allow more then one card to fit into a PCMCIA slot.

In the case of the US robotics card. the antenna is humped, and thus will NOT all an additional pcmpa card in at the same time. But..you get fabulous signal strength as a result. I would also bet that PCMCIA cards with a fold up antenna would likely also have faired really good in my test…but I did not try one…

Albert D. Kallal
Edmonton, Alberta Canada
kallal@msn.com
http://www.attcanada.net/~kallal.msn

I'm totally with you there mate. I keep checking, in the hope that either Palm will release a descent handheld with wireless, or drivers become available for the Sandisk card.

It makes me very sad to see heaps of PPC handhelds with bluetooth & wi-fi. I'm almost at the point of switching to the Dell Axim X30. I've given up waiting for PalmOne to catch up with the rest of the world. We need wireless handhelds now... not in two years time!!!!!