The speed at which data can be transferred over wireless networks is increasing and there are some tempting new technologies that push the limits even higher than was ever thought possible just a few years ago. An old computer of mine still has an 11Mbit/s 802.11b Wi-Fi network adaptor connected to a USB 1 socket and those standards are positively ancient. They were replaced by the much faster 802.11g standard that offers up to 54Mbit/s and adaptors plug into USB 2 sockets. The latest Wi-Fi standard is 802.11n, and while it hasn't yet been finalised, you can buy equipment today that is based on the draft specification. The upper limit for this technology is 600Mbit/s, but do we need it though?
There isn't a single answer to this question and it depends on what you want to do. If all you want to do is to browse websites, send and receive email, watch online videos, or view online photos, then the old 802.11b standard may be all that you need and buying top-of-the-range ultra-fast networking gear would be a waste of money. The thing is, your internet connection is probably only around 5Mbit/s. Of course, ISPs try to tempt you with offers of up to 20Mbit/s connections, but you never connect at the maximum speed advertised and in the real world it's hard to connect at more than 5Mbit/s.
If you think about it, an 802.11b wireless connection offering up to 11Mbit/s should easily be able to cope with a 5Mbit/s internet connection, after all it's only half the maximum thoughput. In the real world, however, you never achieve the maximum quoted speed and you'll only get a quarter of the maximum for a technology.
It's an interesting exercise to test your connection speed at a website like www.speedtest.net Just click a server and the download and upload speeds are tested. The results may vary slightly depending on the time of day and how many people are using the internet, so try it at different times. My six-year-old PC with an 802.11b Wi-Fi adaptor achieved a speed of 1350kbit/s (1.35Mbit/s), which is actually quite fast when you think about the 512kbit/s connection speeds available when broadband was first introduced. It is certainly fast enough for web browsing, email and other internet activities. You would only notice the slow speed when downloading large files like Linux distros.
A newer PC with an 802.11g Wi-Fi adaptor recorded a speed of 2880kbit/s (2.8Mbit/s), which is roughly twice as fast. It doesn't make browsing the web or email any faster because these operations don't need a lot of bandwidth, but it's certainly an advantage when it comes to downloading large files. A PC connected to the router using an ethernet cable recorded an identical connection speed to the 802.11g Wi-Fi adaptor, suggesting that the limiting factor is not the adaptor or wireless technology, but the router's actual internet connection speed. It usually reports that the connection is 4 to 5Mbit/s, but as always what it says and what you get are two separate things. So clearly 802.11g is perfectly adequate for my 4-5Mbit/s internet connection and there would be no speed benefit from faster Wi-Fi technology until there is some way of estabilishing a faster connection over the telephone cables from my house to the telephone exchange.
It shows that if you have a single PC you don't need anything other than old fashioned 802.11g Wi-Fi for internet access. However, if you have two or more PCs connected using a home or work network and regularly transfer large files between them, then the newer and faster technologies that are available are important because they significantly speed up the process. But how often do you transfer gigabytes of video or audio clips between your computers? If the answer is not very often, then save your money and opt for older and cheaper technology rather than expensive and exotic cutting edge kit. Web browsing is limited by your internet connection speed and not the Wi-Fi standard.
