[quantumstate]

I use wifi to connect to my HTPC and stream HD video in mythfrontend on my laptop, to watch TV in bed. But when the neighbors are doing downloads or I heat something in the microwave it gets real choppy, so I did some research about switching to 802.11a. (5GHz)


Turns out that the newest revision of 802.11n (Draft 2.0) uses the 5GHz and 2.5GHz bands simultaneously, automatically routing media streams through 5GHz, because it has a much faster bandwidth and it's in a very non-polluted area of the radio spectrum. 5GHz has traditionally been dicey because freqs that high have a hard time penetrating walls with 'a', but 'n' MIMO technology makes up for that and gives connection ranges up to 250'.


Very little equipment can do Draft 2.0 yet, but I have an Intel 4965AGN miniPCI card in my laptop which can, using the kernel drivers in 2.6.27 and firmware from the intellinuxwireless project. (/lib/firmware/iwlwifi-4965-2.ucode) Most laptops use a miniPCI wireless card, so you could swap yours out, although if you don't have multiple antennae you won't really get the benefits of MIMO.

# lspci |grep Network

10:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 4965 AG or AGN [Kedron] Network Connection (rev 61)


I've found only a couple of routers that can do Draft 2.0, and my choice is the DLink DIR-825, which I recently snagged for $65 on eBay (no power adapter), although they normally run $130. There does not seem to be a way to turn off 2.5GHz in this router unfortunately, nor a way to turn off beacon for cloaking, and DLink support is unresponsive to email so I guess I have to fscking call them.


How do you know that you've actually connected at 'n' speeds? Any time you connect at more than 54Mb/s (iwconfig), you are running 'n'.


Just an FYI for you cream-of-the-crop running Linux. Consider getting out of the 2.5GHz band. It's considerate of your neighbors, gives much higher bandwidth, is much less polluted, and is highly secure as it's unlikely the neighborhood kids will try and hack you in 5GHz.

 

[MichaelZ]



Quote:
Originally Posted by quantumstate /forum/post/15472626


I use wifi to connect to my HTPC and stream HD video in mythfrontend on my laptop, to watch TV in bed. But when the neighbors are doing downloads or I heat something in the microwave it gets real choppy, so I did some research about switching to 802.11a. (5GHz)


Turns out that the newest revision of 802.11n (Draft 2.0) uses the 5GHz and 2.5GHz bands simultaneously, automatically routing media streams through 5GHz, because it has a much faster bandwidth and it's in a very non-polluted area of the radio spectrum. 5GHz has traditionally been dicey because freqs that high have a hard time penetrating walls with 'a', but 'n' MIMO technology makes up for that and gives connection ranges up to 250'.


Very little equipment can do Draft 2.0 yet, but I have an Intel 4965AGN miniPCI card in my laptop which can, using the kernel drivers in 2.6.27 and firmware from the intellinuxwireless project. (/lib/firmware/iwlwifi-4965-2.ucode) Most laptops use a miniPCI wireless card, so you could swap yours out, although if you don't have multiple antennae you won't really get the benefits of MIMO.

# lspci |grep Network

10:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 4965 AG or AGN [Kedron] Network Connection (rev 61)


I've found only a couple of routers that can do Draft 2.0, and my choice is the DLink DIR-825, which I recently snagged for $65 on eBay (no power adapter), although they normally run $130. There does not seem to be a way to turn off 2.5GHz in this router unfortunately, nor a way to turn off beacon for cloaking, and DLink support is unresponsive to email so I guess I have to fscking call them.


How do you know that you've actually connected at 'n' speeds? Any time you connect at more than 54Mb/s (iwconfig), you are running 'n'.


Just an FYI for you cream-of-the-crop running Linux. Consider getting out of the 2.5GHz band. It's considerate of your neighbors, gives much higher bandwidth, is much less polluted, and is highly secure as it's unlikely the neighborhood kids will try and hack you in 5GHz.

I just threw away an old 802a/b wifi router. The "a" (5ghz) could barely penetrate one sheet of dry wall. It was quite pathetic. I was using it to connect a 25 ft distance between two room - it lost about 60% of its signal once going though the drywall. Due to the physics of high freq. (5ghz) I doubt the "n" will really be that much better. My $0.02

I do agree about the 2.4ghz pollution (microwave, wifi, bluetooth, etc.)

 

[quantumstate]

I am getting excellent performance. It makes sense that MIMO can compensate, because rather than being impaired by multipath interference, it takes advantage of it. As the signal is bouncing down your hall it gets split time and again, and the same signal arrives at different times to the other end. MIMO uses multiple antennae and sends/receives multiple phases, timings, and orientations of data, enhancing the likelihood it'll get there intact and simultaneously increasing the bandwidth.


It works man. And if you imagine your wifi cell like a hemispheric bubble over your house, 'n' is at least five times larger so you want to reduce its Tx power as much as practicable. Why reach five blocks away, with all the security ramifications that has?

 

[jimwhite]



Quote:
Originally Posted by quantumstate /forum/post/15472993


I am getting excellent performance. It makes sense that MIMO can compensate, because rather than being impaired by multipath interference, it takes advantage of it. As the signal is bouncing down your hall it gets split time and again, and the same signal arrives at different times to the other end. MIMO uses multiple antennae and sends/receives multiple phases, timings, and orientations of data, enhancing the likelihood it'll get there intact and simultaneously increasing the bandwidth.


It works man. And if you imagine your wifi cell like a hemispheric bubble over your house, 'n' is at least five times larger so you want to reduce its Tx power as much as practicable. Why reach five blocks away, with all the security ramifications that has?

Usually your stuff is pretty savy but you sound like a media shill here...

 

[quantumstate]

LOL, OK Jim. Yeah, I own DLink and the 'n' technology.


Hm, you perceiving my posts here as marketing talk, implies that you can not understand the incontrovertible technical points I've made. I've got to think you did understand, but evidence points otherwise.


Just trying to improve network ecology and help you, FCS.

 

[newlinux]

How much will a 5Ghz digital spead spectrum phone interrupt wireless N at the 5Ghz frequency?

 

[quantumstate]

No idea, didn't know there was such a thing.


But I have alot of confidence on 'n' tech. I saw one review that started with, "The gestation period of an elephant is over two years. So far the incubation of 802.11n has bested that by a good measure." I remember in 2003 getting it to a neighbor's Belkin pre-N router, three blocks away in a neighborhood of all 2 story brick houses. That was amazing back then.

 

[jimwhite]

my only foray into "n" tech was to get a Linksys 150n router and a USB dongle (can't remember the number) with two little antenna's.... worse than my Netgear MIMO 54g...

 

[Troubleshooter]

Last I saw, N doesn't really work in Linux and goes down to G even with ndiswrapper. May have changed but I'm not sure it has as of the current kernel and various card drivers set.


-Trouble

 

[quantumstate]

Sworking for me, with the equipment & drivers noted in the first post hereto.

 

[newlinux]



Quote:
Originally Posted by quantumstate /forum/post/15484120


No idea, didn't know there was such a thing.

I have one I bought a couple of years ago so it wouldn't interfere with my 2.4Ghz wireless G

 

[quantumstate]

Ah well, I guess it's hopeless then.

 

[blackoper]

weird my linksys 150n flashed with DD-Wrt works great. Possibly the DD-WRT firmware is the difference

Call me old fashioned but almost everything is hardwired in with gigabit. Only thing wireless I use is a nokia N800 tablet

 

[aaronwt]



Quote:
Originally Posted by MichaelZ /forum/post/15472806


I just threw away an old 802a/b wifi router. The "a" (5ghz) could barely penetrate one sheet of dry wall. It was quite pathetic. I was using it to connect a 25 ft distance between two room - it lost about 60% of its signal once going though the drywall. Due to the physics of high freq. (5ghz) I doubt the "n" will really be that much better. My $0.02

I do agree about the 2.4ghz pollution (microwave, wifi, bluetooth, etc.)

My wireless n at 5Ghz from my Dlink DAP-1522 access point/Bridge has no problem going through a fire wall made of Brick and two more walls with drywall on each side with my condo. I can still get superfast transfer speeds from my laptop. Much faster than I could using 2.4Ghz wireless N and of course wireless G doesn't come close. And of course I can easily max out my 50/20 interent connection, but I needed faster transfers than that on my internal network since my wired portion is Gigabit, And with the Dlink AP at 5Ghz N it does the trick.