Proxim, one of the world leaders in WiFi technology recently announced that their latest wireless access point has a maximum throughport of 320mb per second, which is over three times faster than standard 10/100 wired connections. Some people however seem to be getting confused by this, believing that the serious increase of Wireless speeds means lightening fast Wireless Broadband.
Wireless Broadband is, in actualy fact, just a standard broadband connection (usually cable or adsl) that is then shared via a wireless router (or a wireless ‘gateway’ - a WiFi router combined with a broadband modem).
This means that, since the broadband connection still reaches your house via a standard fixed line (either copper telephone wire, or fibre optic cable), all that the changes to WiFi speeds standards will mean is the connection between your PC and the router will be quicker.
One example of how the increase in WiFi speed will effect the average user is gaming over a local area network. the faster the WiFi connection, the better multiplayer gaming over a Wireless network will be.
Another example, is video and file sharing between PCs connected via the WiFi access point. This is, of course, providing the clients has sufficiently fast WiFi cards to appreciate the increased speed of the access point they are connecting to.
So, in short, will a 302mbs access point increase your wireless broadband speed? No… Will it allow you to connect to your broadband via a superfast wireless connection, and share files between networked PCs faster? Yep! You bet!
Tags: wifi, wireless broadband
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