I have a 50Mbps Virgin broadband account with a D-Link DIR 615 wireless router. I can get 50 megs on my laptop when it's plugged in via an Ethernet cable, but via Wi-Fi, I get about 22 megs – less than half the speed. The technician said that unless I have an "n" card I will never be able to get 50 megs. I'm using a 2006 MacBook with OS X 10.4.11.
Katie Toms
The technician is correct. In theory, 802.11g Wi-Fi supports bandwidth up to 54Mbps, but in reality, about 22Mbps is what you should expect to get. The draft "n" standard supports over 100Mbps, and in real life should deliver 50Mbps if you are only using 802.11n Wi-Fi, ie not a mix of b/g/n standards. Unfortunately, Apple didn't announce support for the draft standard until January 2007, about six months after Dell, and says it only supports the higher speed on MacBooks with Core 2 Duo processors. If you have a MacBook rather than a MacBook Pro, there is no easy way to upgrade the Wi-Fi – it has no PC Card or ExpressCard/34 expansion slot, even if the processor could handle the throughput. If you really need 50Mbps wireless, you'll probably have to buy a new computer, though I'd still be interested to know which internet services actually need that speed.
