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Spinning Wireless Speeds
Page 1 of 2 The question I find myself trying to figure out is exactly who is to blame? The advertising comes from the marketing and PR people who generate the scores of flashy product tag lines and slick ad campaigns. The marketing people get their information from the project people, who in turn get their information from the engineers - the ones who make it all happen. What I am uncertain about is when and where in this process people start to test the pliability of the truth - seeing how much they can bend and stretch it. Maybe it is not a breakdown in the internal structure of the corporate beast but rather a relaxed complacency by the general consumer, something we have all become accustomed to. The networking industry has grown in conjunction with the entire technology industry. Network bandwidth has been a steady and unmoving technology until recently. The days of the 10Mbit connection are now gone, replaced by 1Gbit and wireless connections. The bulk of the networking technology currently in place is 100Mbit which still satisfies most users' bandwidth needs, although 1Gbit is becoming more popular in home networks as well as a standard in many corporate settings. The truly unique and coveted technology is wireless home networking. Standards such as 802.11a, b, g, and soon 802.11n are heavily penetrating the home networking segment. It is this mass market saturation that is pitting companies against each other, each trying to differentiate their product from the pack. The best way to make your product stand out has always been to have the fastest or the biggest. Obviously, the "largest router on the market" isn't very enticing, so that leaves speed. I am uncertain where the first diversion from the norm really occurred. I believe that the transition from 100Mbit to 802.11b may have been the start of this slippery slope. If you measure the speed of a good 100Mbit network, you will most likely get near 90Mbit/s. I have tested my own 100Mbit connection and found it to be in the high 90's most of the time. A 10% margin of error isn't too bad. Certainly, if a 100Mbit network connection were to operate at 50Mbit, it would immediately be picked up as faulty and the troubleshooting would begin. Somewhere in the transition to the wireless world, those reported vs. actual numbers grew further apart. Continue reading on page 2...
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