Computers & Networking

[da_kiah]

Linksys product WRT120N lists the speed at 150 Mbs data transfer rate; whereas the WRT160N lists the spead as 10/100 Mbs.  What is the difference in the simplest terms?

I would think the WRT160N speed that is listed is actually for the wired ethernet ports.  What is the max wireless uplink speed to the WRT160N?  What is the comparitive difference in true max uplink and average uplink speed on the WRT120 versus the WRT160?

Also, who is the distributor that provides the refrubishment services for Best Buy or Linksys on the WRT160N-R?

Thanks for your time.

[ABomb]

The WRT120N and WRT160N differ signiicantly in thier 11n specs and certifications. 

120N is single stream/channel (150Mbps max), has an Atheros chip and 2MB of flash

160N is dual stream/channel (300Mbps max), has a Broadcom chip and 4MB of flash (chip has changed through versions and one actually was a Ralink chip)

I copied that straight from the linksys forums.

[cpm]

the difference is one is faster than the other one and the distrubutor is linksys.

[Entropy]

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ABomb wrote:

The WRT120N and WRT160N differ signiicantly in thier 11n specs and certifications. 

120N is single stream/channel (150Mbps max), has an Atheros chip and 2MB of flash

160N is dual stream/channel (300Mbps max), has a Broadcom chip and 4MB of flash (chip has changed through versions and one actually was a Ralink chip)

I copied that straight from the linksys forums.

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Thanks for that info.  As the OP guessed, the 10/100 spec is that for the wired network ports.

A few things to note with wireless vs. wired and N:

The wireless specs are the absolute max signaling rates used by the wireless network.  Because it is a shared media, collision sensing/collision avoidance overhead will mean your real-world throughput will rarely be more than half the signaling rate even with only one device "talking".

802.11n degrades heavily in the presence of legacy (b/g) devices in the same spectrum.  At full bandwidth, N uses the entire 2.4 GHz band, so in 90% of installations, it's going to degrade.

If you are not transferring files internally within your network, then with 95%+ of internet service providers, there is no point in getting anything beyond 802.11g - Most ISPs do not even provide enough bandwidth to saturate an 802.11g connection.

Wired with a switch is very different, those wired ports are capable of 100 Mbps in each direction simultaneously, and you can easily see 90-95% of that in real-world throughput.  If you're doing heavy file transfers in your internal network, use a wire.

802.11n is VERY situational, and IMO only is useful (compared to a good 802.11g router with an external antenna) when streaming HD recordings from a media server PC to a media center frontend PC, and only in the 5 GHz band.  (This is the only reason I have an 802.11n installation, it is running in the 5 GHz band independently of my 2.4 GHz G network.)