Wireless N Vs G

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Do you know what the difference is between the 802.11g and the 802.11n? Many consumers are unfortunately confused and end up leaving the electronics store with the wrong type of wireless device. Not only is it important to know what differences exist between the two, but it also important to determine which one is actually going to meet your needs when it comes to buying and using a wireless device such as these.

The first thing that you need to understand is the 802.11 wireless protocol series. This is the standardization that was created by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers or the IEEE society. 802 is a number that classifies all standards that relate to Networking, whether you are talking about LAN, WAN or WLAN technologies. 802.11 is a specific number for standards that relate specifically to wireless networking. Taking it even further, the standard is broken down into a number of different letters including 802.11a, 802.11b, then 802.11n and 802.11g, and so on.

As it is plain to see, the most common letters are not in order. When these standards initially were proposed, each proposition had a separate letter assigned to it, and then a team was assigned to the development of each one. Not every one of them was a success, and so some of them did not make it past the basic theoretically stages of their development, which is why standards like 802.11m and 802.11e do not appear to exist.

The most common standards today are 802.11g and 802.11n. There are a number of differences between each of these standards, including that they are not backward compatible with other standards like 802.11a and 802.11b. This is important to consider when you are choosing a device. However, most wireless routers that do support N are also going to support G.