Wireless Network Question

[Mobius1]

I have a wireless G network at present to connect all devices to the net. This includes my desktop, a laptop, 2 games consoles etc etc. I use Virgin Media 10mb. Currently if I do a speedtest I'll get 9800Kbps downstream and 450Kbps up, so everything's fine.

My question is, if I upgrade my cable service to 20mb, is my wireless G network going to bottleneck the connection? G is rated for 54mbps, but realistically will only allow half that or less in terms or real throughput. I know I could upgrade to a wireless N network, but seeing as neither of my consoles or iPod Touch and iPhone support wireless N, I don't really want to do that at present.

Anybody have any real experiences of this?

[ChuckFickens]

You might actually be pushing it, but only in a very particular set of circumstances.

G is rated at 54 Mb/s but, as you've spotted will normally only give a TCP/IP throughput of about 25Mb/s

So, If you have 3 devices (for example) all using the wireless at once you can then split that 25Mb/s into 3, so each device would be getting 8Mb/s on the wireless


Now the catch here is.... it's going to depend on what each of the computers are actually doing!

If all three computers are browsing the internet or downloading then you wouldn't have a problem as the overall speed of your wireless is faster than the overall speed of your internet, so the wireless bandwidth is divided by 3 but so is the internet bandwidth.

If one computer was downloading and the other two are copying files between them but not using the internet you could create a bottleneck because you'd have your wireless bandwidth still being shared 3 ways but your internet bandwidth only being used by a single computer

So the potential for a bottleneck is there.... but being realistic I doubt you'd ever see the effects of it in real world usage.

(I hope you understand what I'm saying LOL)

[Mobius1]

Yeah, your answer makes perfect sense. Tbh, none of the 6-7 devices are actually linked to one another on the network. There is no sharing of files or anything like that, the network is accessed by the devices solely for the purpose of Internet connection.

I should have mentioned that originally but didn't think to. So really, the only network traffic is to and fro from each thing, rather than from the net and between devices. I'm assuming seeing as that's the case, I should be okay?