Scribbled by Matt Wilkinson

Not too long ago, I upgraded my home Wireless LAN from 802.11b to 802.11g. I replaced my Speedstream 802.11b Wireless Router with a D-Link DI-524 Wireless Router. By now, I figured 54g products had matured sufficiently.

I had some other motivations to make the switch. I have two ReplayTV 5000 series DVRs on my network: one in my bedroom that had to be connected with a Wireless Ethernet Bridge, and one in my living room that was hardwired to the router. Streaming video from the bedroom unit was just not working. Also, I was beginning to pump more data between computers on my LAN.

So once I replaced the router, I put a D-Link DWL-G810 802.11g Wireless Ethernet Bridge on the bedroom ReplayTV. My primary laptop already had 54g standard. And on my primary desktop I put a Linksys WUSB54G Wireless-G USB Adapter. Almost forgot to mention that I have Hawking Technologies Hi-Gain Directional Antennas on both the 11g bridge and router. Antennas make a big difference.

Video streaming was vastly improved, virtually eliminating interruptions in playback. Data between wireless clients flowed faster. Life was good. The only thing that became a problem was some legacy stuff I had on 11b adapters, which I touched upon in an earlier posting.

There are those 11g 108mb “speed-booster” products out, but you generally have to match brands with all your Wireless NICs and the router. Kind of a hassle. I am keeping an eye on 802.11n. Belkin has some “Pre-N” products they just rolled out. Reviews seem promising, but I’ll wait until the standard is finalized and some more entries into the market force prices down. Perhaps late 2005, early 2006?

In a future post, I’ll do a deep-dive into my entire network and home office, which has an interesting history and continues to evolve. I’ll also list my favorite WiFi brands and products in an upcoming post. What can I say, I’m a Wi-Fi kind of guy!