Will the Z100G ever use the new 802.11n? Can it be upgraded with a firmware update when and if it is available? What kind of speed difference is there in the Super G and N? Just curious.

I rather doubt that a mere firmware upgrade will allow the Z100G to use the 802.11n standard. It will need a hardware upgrade as well.

It is faster, but with most internet links still slower even than the old 11 mbps standard I am not sure how much performance increase most people would get going to 802.11n.

For more on all of the 802.11 standards go here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11

802.11n is a DRAFT standard. Not an official one last I checked... You will probably need new hardware to do 802.11n .. Just an ordinary AP (Access Point) not a full router... ;)

Truth be told 802.11N draft is a bit more resilient than Super G, but also realize the main bottleneck in most home users home is still the internet connection itself...

Realize if you have DSL or such, you might at most be getting 3mb.. which is the real bottleneck...

Thanks for the input. I do have DSL and was getting screwed. I am at 1.4 mbps now, for $5 more a month I can go to 6 mbps. That's a no-brainer, kit is on the way. I guess they are sending a new modem.

At the moment we are not planning to create a new hardware for the 802.11N .
And like written this would indeed require a new unit for those of you that already have a Z100 .

Speed isn't the only reason to upgrade. My Z100G at home has to contend with 4 other access points with good signals, so channel congestion is a problem. Switching to 802.11n should provide some relief, if only temporarily.

BR:

While 802.11G does have 11 channels only three of them are "non-overlapping" in terms of the spectrum that they use: 1,6, and 11

Just as a suggestion, if you could figure out what channel the other strong signals are on you might be able to set the Z100G to use a non-overlapping channel....

If you are in an apartment/condo. and these folks are all your neighbors you could still be hosed, but it might be worth a try...

FWIW,
jim

Thanks Jim,

I did just that the other day. InSSIDer is a great (and free) program for that purpose. I'm actually in a tract home, not an apartment, but I still have neighboring access points on 6, 8, 9, 10, and 11. I moved to 1 and it's much quieter - so much so I could increase my RTS threshold back up to match the fragmentation threshold (effectively disabling RTS). Download throughput is back to 1.2 Mbps measured at http://ndt.anl.gov/. That's the best I can do with DSL - I'm waiting for FiOS.

I do notice download throughput will sometimes drop off by >95% though, while upload is unaffected (360 Kbps). There is little congestion now, and often few to no established connections at the time, so resources don't seem to be the problem. Rebooting the laptop has no effect, but restarting the Z100G brings the speed right back. Firmware is at 8.0.37x. Still trying to figure out this one. Nothing obvious I can see in the logs, so I'm thinking it's an internal glitch in the firmware version.

I do appreciate the response though. If anyone else is seeing congestion, I can recommend inSSIDer.

I think 802.11n would still be a worthwhile upgrade BTW, but I guess we'll just have to wait for the market to improve. For now I'm hoping none of my neighbors think to change their channel numbers :)


Thanks again,
BR (aka John)

John:
Glad you found a (clearer)channel.

Dang... I can't explain the drop-off in download speed, I don't think I've ever heard anyone else have that problem.

They are laying fiber optic cable in my neighborhood now, and I think FiOS is not too far off.... I just hope I can afford it without having to sell one of the kids ;-)

Jim

First, thank you guys for the inSSIDer information. (Pun intended). Its a great utility that I was not aware of.

I use NetStumbler which is much more detailed, but it turns your machine into a sniffer and binds your wifi card for that purpose only. Have to reboot to get back on the internet.

inSSIDer is great for a quick peek and some trending.

Second, when uploading works great but downloading is sporadic, it's very difficult to nail that down. It could be congestion, ISP cache server overload, or it could be the firewall scanning.

If you notice this slowdown only with email then try disabling the email scanning to see if that changes the behavior.

The only other thing I can tell you is my performance has dramatically improved by switching to the Norton Internet Suite. I know, I told everyone that Norton sucks, but the latest version is the fastest and most accurate scanner I have yet to see.

Good to hear inSSIDer works for you too. I thought about NetStmbler, but I read it has problems with Vista and x64 machines. I use x64 Win2K8, which is the server version of Vista, so I was glad to find inSSIDer.

My download problem is intermittent, but isn't the ISP or the workstation. Happens about once a day, but I haven't kept a log of the times. At the same time the wireless download speed is depressed, the wired side of the LAN is operating normally. And, as I mentioned, rebooting the workstation has no effect. I evaluate speed with all applications closed, including email. Event and security logs from the Z100G show nothing out of the ordinary. I hope to get some equipment at work this year I can borrow for a weekend to help diagnose the problem.

FWIW, I do use Symantec Endpoint Protection, but only the anti-virus and anti-malware components run on x64 Win2K8. I've had to deal quite a lot with Symantec enterprise support at work, and I have to say I'm not impressed. The products do seem to work though, once you get them working at all.

Cheers.