Whats the fastest wireless router available on the market?

Question

Will it be anywhere near as fast as a wired ethernet connection.

Answer 1

This is not really a straigthforward question. There are two parts of your connection to the internet. The broadband connection and the wireless connection. The key thing to understand is that the speed of the broadband connection is usually the limiting factor.  So having a faster wireless component to the router wont improve the speed of your connection to the internet. The commonest standard for wireless networking is 802.11g which is 54MB half duplex ( you cant send and receive at the same time) However as most broadband connections are much slower than this its not much of an issue unless you have lots of devices sharing the wireless connection and then the 54MB is shared amongst them. Also 54MB is available close to the router and the further away you are and the more walls the signal has to travel through which weaken the signal the lower the speed at which you can transmit or receive. Final couple of things most wireless routers come with wired port 100MB or sometimes 1000MB full duplex but remember that the speed of the broadband connection to the internet will most likely be the limiting factor, But as most wireless routers have wired connections as well you could use wired connection close to the router and wireless in other rooms to avoid the need to run cables. However, if you really must have higher than the 54MB Max available via wireless you could try Ethernet over power. This uses the power sockets and cabling in your house to provide up to 100MB. You simply plug in adators into power sockets in your house and then plug a network cable from the router to the adpator close to it and then in the room where you want the remote device plug in a network cable from the PC to the adaptor in the Power socket in that room. This avoids the need to run network cables through the house and give you more than the 54MB available with wireless.