wireless routers supplied with broadband 802.11b compatible?

I have an old computer with a 802.11b card in. Will it work with any/most/all of the wireless routers currrently supplied by any of the major broadband supplies, Virgin, BT, Sky etc.? Most/all current ones are 802.11n I think?; Will any of those also support 802.11b or not?

Thanks.

Yes, AFAIK all WiFi equipment is backward compatible with 11b, I believe that is part of the std. spec.
Even though, you may want to replace your card with at least 11g.
Regards,
Martin

Should work, but the newer security systems may be an issue, i.e. check what security modes the old hardware supports eg. WEP, WPA, WPA2

Another issue is that a B device on an N network (if single band) will generally hold back the other N and G products speed wise. B while nominally 11Mbps, actually means a maximum of about 4.5Mbps in ideal conditions in either direction.

OK, thanks for that. It does look like at least reconfiguring the wireless router would be necessary.

In the event of either me not being able to reconfigure the wireless router (it's going to be a shared situation and not my 802.11n router so it may be problematic to start changing things too much), or in the event of the 802.11n wireless router just not being able to support 802.11b, might something like this be possible?:

I have an Apple base station ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AirPort#AirPort_Extreme... ) which I'm using at the moment fine with my 802.11b computer. Might it be possible to somehow connect my Apple base station to the already existing 802.11n wireless router somehow (by cable (ethernet?) or wirelessly)? The broadband connection in question is Sky, but I'm not sure of any further details yet, apart from it is using a wireless router.

Thanks.

The supplied router will almost certainly work - but you might upset teh others sharing it if they find they are only connecting at 802.11b speeds!

If you can set the AirPort with DHCP server off and connect wired to the other router/WAP you should have a working set up - you might want to give te AirPOrt a fixed IP in the main router - easier/quicker to find and look at if you know the IP.

If the computer in question is a laptop, you could use an 802.11n USB wireless network adaptor. You will have drivers supplied for Windows XP on an optical disk or download them from the USB wireless network adaptor's Website.. Speaking of which, what kind of computer is the old one that uses 802.11b?

Simon Mackay

http://homenetworking01.info