11g and the
overhyped 802.11n standards, both of which promise even faster speeds
and greater range. Of course, all of these advertised specs assume laboratory-
perfect conditions, so unless you??™re interested in building a vacuum
chamber for your wireless equipment, you??™ll likely get about a
third of the quoted speed of your equipment (and less, the poorer the
reception gets).
Build Your Network | 343
Networking and
Internet
A further caveat is that you need matched equipment to get
the best performance: your laptop must have an ???n??™ radio to
get the most out of an ???n??™ network. Luckily, each of these
standards (with the exception of 802.11a) is backwardcompatible
with earlier incarnations, so an older ???g??™ laptop
will still work on a newer ???n??™ network, albeit at the slower
???g??™ speed. Of course, with typical DSL and cable Internet
speeds at only 1??“3 Mbps, a faster WiFi signal will do nothing
to get you your email any faster.
Bluetooth
Bluetooth is a wireless networking ???standard??? (the term must be used
loosely here). Bluetooth will never supplant WiFi, nor is it meant to.
Rather, it??™s an inexpensive, low-power technology and is commonly
used in high-end cell phones, handheld PDAs, and some laptops. Most
people get their first taste of Bluetooth with wireless cell phone headsets
or cordless mice and keyboards, but it does much more than that
(at least in theory). See ???Get Bluetooth to Work,??? later in this chapter, if
you feel like wasting an afternoon installing and reinstalling Bluetooth
drivers.
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