Airport

Ok, I really don't get how all the different numbers compare. I'm talking about the speed of airport and airport extreme. When I bought my 900 Mhz
G3 iBook (about 2 months ago), I also bought one of those USB wireless adapters because I didn't feel like spending as much as the original airport cards are going for. Well, the $40 USB dongle has died on me and the company is not helpful at all. I'm now looking to buy an original airport card. I'm wondering how much, if any, speed I will lose. Like the airport extreme, the USB adapter was rated at 54 Mbps. At times, I had download speeds in the 900 KB/s. Any ideas what my max download speed will be with an airport card? Anyone looking to unload an airport card?

~Damien

Well 802.11g (which I assume is what your dongle(haha, dongle) was) is rated at 54Mbit/s max, and you'll get about 24Mbit/s out of it on average. 802.11b, which is the origional Airport standard, is only rated for 14Mbit/s max, and will typically only be able to get like 6.5 Mbit/s. Your probably looking at about 1/4th as fast. Depending on your setup, you might be ably to get a little bit more than that out of it, but I wouldn't guess too much more.

Okay, thanks for the info. I figured that somebody on here would know enough about this stuff to help me. Very helpful!

~Damien

Exactly right Jeff, any wireless card will most always get about half the speed it is rated at, no matter who makes it.