
Triple the Wireless Networking Range of Your MacBook
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Posted June 29, 2009 at 11:55am · 2 comments · Add Comment
Vipey - June 30, 2009 at 11:20am
There are always two side to the coin when it comes to long range WiFi antennas. It is all good if you are in the country-side where you have no interference and find it hard to even get a signal.
However, in the real-world of those who might use this "sexy" new device, there is a real problem. WiFi, or 802.11 standard works based on CSMA/CA.
CSMA = Carrier Sense Multiple Access (commonly known as a hub... or shared bandwidth)
CA = Collision Avoidance
The problem lies with the "CA" portion. If your antenna is "too good", you will pick up the noise from surrounding areas and if it is strong enough, and your device/drivers are not good enough to filter out the noise, you will get very poor performance and even dropped carrier.
The WiFi as we know today operates on the 2.4GHz ISM band and there is the 5GHz media band, which is extremely rare. Nonetheless, the 2.4GHz ISM band is broken up into 13 channels, which is recommended to skip two channels to guarantee no interference. Which means that in ANY given surrounding, you cannot have more than 5 wireless networks in the vicinity. Please do the math... now... with an even more powerful (I'm guessing) 7dbi antenna... noise will flow like in like there's no tomorrow.
I wonder what the manufacturer have to say about that... if they have a good answer... I will seriously consider getting this new toy.
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Vipey - June 30, 2009 at 11:25am
Oh.. I forgot to mention another thing about this post... I think it is common knowledge that
802.11b = 11mbit/s
802.11g = 54mbit/s
802.11n = 300mbit/s... in theory. If you can hit 150mbps... you're lucky.
So! 15mbp/s must be a typo
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