WiFi PCIe card with FreeBSD support

sickboy

sickboy

Hi there,

I'm looking for a WiFi PCIe card (300 Mbps), supported by FreeBSD. Maybe someone here has a recommendation for me? Price doesn't matter.
 
You may want to actually calculate the wireless data rate as compared to your connection. My 54 Mbps 802.11b/g cards are not the bottle neck in my 1.5 Mbps DSL connection. For that matter they would not become an issue until my connection went over 54 Mbps. With a 108 Mbps card you would not see a difference until your connection went over 100 Mbps. If you are lucky enough to have a connection faster than that, by all means do not let price be an object.

Ralink cards are also well supported although like some Intel cards may require firmware.

DutchDaemon, in the following post, points out that my terminology was confusing and I apologize for that. I actually pulled the abbreviations from the web sites of some vendors. This actually is a good illustration of marketing tactics. Why do Internet service providers and the manufactures of networking cards not use the same syntax? This would make it easy to purchase a card that is a good fit for your connection.

From this link:
The wireless speed of your router is the LAN speed. The LAN consists of all the computers and devices hooked to your router in your house. Connections will always default to the slowest device. For example if you have a wireless N router (300Mbps) connected to a wireless G laptop (54Mbps), then the laptop can communicate with the router at 54Mbps. If you wanted to copy a file from your laptop to a desktop connected to your router via a Ethernet (100Mbps) cable connection, then you could do that at the laptop's wireless G speed of 54Mbps.

Now for the DSL speed. The Internet is the other network connected to your router via your DSL modem. The Internet is a Wide Area Network or WAN. Your DSL modem can communicate with your Internet provider at a maximum of 6Mbps. This connection bandwidth is shared by your entire LAN via your router. If one user is utilizing 4Mbps of the bandwidth that only leaves 2Mbps for the rest of the users on the LAN.

Being that your (WAN) Internet connection is 6Mbps and a wireless G router is many times faster at 54Mbps, there is no advantage in Internet speed by choosing a wireless N router. The only advantage would be in transferring files around between computers on your local LAN. Wireless N also has a larger range, meaning you can get a wireless signal at a larger distance from the router. However, remember to get either the speed or range improvements of wireless N, both devices have to be N. A wireless N router hooked to a wireless G adapter on a PS3 will have the range and speed of wireless G.

I'm not saying not to buy a wireless N router, I use one myself. Just don't expect any improvement in Internet speed. People that recommend N to improve Internet speed don't understand the concept, or they're lucky enough to live in a area and have the money to afford using ungodly fast and expensive Internet connections such as Comcast Ultimate 105Mbps.

Direct CAT5 Ethernet connections are 100Mbps, there is also a newer Gigabit Ethernet (1000Mbps) which uses special CAT6 cabling and Gigabit devices and network adapters. As with the wireless devices it will always default to the slowest standard.
Click to expand...
 
I found a spreadsheet on the pfSense forum regarding FreeBSD WiFi chipsets and capabilities available. Safest bet would probably be crosschecking chipset markings on every WiFi card getting on your way.
 
@shepper, that quote is trying to explain bottlenecks but not doing it very well. Also, some of the statements in it look to be based on misunderstandings. Ethernet does not "default to the slowest standard", for example.
 
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