I live in the middle of the woods, and I generally discourage the use of things like bluetooth at my house. So, 2.4Ghz works ok for me. But if you actually have neighbors, and own / use a microwave oven, and use bluetooth gadgetry, and any other number of things that can / do emit into the 2.4Ghz spectrum, I have to agree with Frank. Put your 11n traffic into the 5Ghz space, and leave everyone else in the 2.4Ghz space. 2.4Ghz is noisy and crowded and just not a lot of fun.
I have a long list of funny / disheartening storries about 2.4Ghz and wifi at a number of my employer's locations ....
Frank, good point too about the channel width. And 802.11ac puts 80 and 160 Mhz channels on the horizon .. but ... who gives a hoot, when (if you choose to play nice with others) you still have to honor those neighbors of your using the 20Mhz channel width?
Ugh, wireless can be such a head ache. Dude, John, just run some cables.
--Adam
On Wed, Oct 13, 2010 at 4:57 PM, Chuck Anderson
<cra@wpi.edu> wrote:
On Wed, Oct 13, 2010 at 11:34:34AM -0400, Frank Sweetser wrote:
> On 10/13/2010 11:23 AM, John Stoffel wrote:
>
> > My only worry is that all my core network is in the basement, but I
> > have my current WAP upstairs in a central-ish location. And my wife's
> > wireless is upstairs too... But replacing my WRAP board with something
> > with more ports which I can break out more would be good
> > to... decisions, decisions...
> >
> > Can you put different antennas on the netgear?
>
> Not on this particular model, no. Sadly, there aren't very many external 11n
> antenna options on the market yet. That said, 11n does have a little better
> penetration than a/b/g, so it may work out for you anyway. I have mine in my
> basement, and it works quite well in my 2nd floor bedroom.
>
> > Thanks for all the feedback, now I'm leaning Netgear... :]
Many of the new Netgears actually run a modified OpenWRT from the
factory (the older 7.x version from what I can tell on my WNDR3700).
A nice 2.4-only 3x3 AP with external antenna connectors is the TP-Link
TL-1043ND. It also runs OpenWRT from the factory. Sadly, this one
isn't reviewed on smallnetbuilder.com.
Another forum with router/wireless hacking info on it:
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum/9?g=3