Wireless LAN with B and G devices

[bobogs]

I could swear that I read somewhere that if you have both B and G devices on a wireless LAN, the router and all the G devices will throttle down to the B level (11mbps). Anyone know if this is true?

I have my laptop (G) on my LAN (Netgear WGR614 (G)), along with my main pc (wired), my AppleTV (G/N), a desktop pc (G), a PS2 game adapter (B) and a TiVo Series 2 (B). Could the B devices be hindering the performance of my laptop?

I ran QCheck on the wired pc and the laptop, and it rated the throughput at ~10mbps, when the laptop was literally 2 feet away from the router. When the laptop was in the other room, where we would normally use it, it was rated at ~3mbps.

Thanks!
Gary

[TooLFooL]

yes this is true! solution: i'd set the router to 'g-only' and get another cheap one for 'b-only'.

[bobogs]

Thanks for the reply.

I made that change on the router, and Qcheck now reports the throughput at ~22, even when the laptop is in the other room. Amazing. Still not even close to 54mbps, but it's better, and I expect that my signal strength will get better and my dropped connections will decrease.

You mentioned using a second router for the B devices. I just happen to have my old Netgear MR814 router laying around...any special considerations when using two wireless routers in the same home? I suppose I could just name their SSIDs accordingly and they'd show up as two separate LANs?

Gary

[TooLFooL]

right, and make sure they have different IP addresses.

...now there may be a little more involved setup with the second router.. for instance, i'm running 2 routers and the second had to be setup as a switch, not a router. also it is connected through the LAN port, not the WAN as you might expect, again because it is just a switch. finally i had to set the "internet gateway" to the IP address of the first router, as this is the one actually hosting my connection and providing all the IP addresses.
of course, this may vary depending on your setup!..

[prouton]

The other issue with using an older B router for a wireless access point is that it sits inside your network, but may only allow for WEP encryption. Your whole network is vulnerable even though you have WPA security set up on the G router.