802.11b speed

My router/modem is Netgear DG824m. My laptop has 802.11b card built in. The wireless connection speed is 1.1 meg. I have two questions: 1- Is this speed what one expects from the hardware I have? (connection usually excellant/good). 2- If I upgrade both the router and the laptop card to 802.11g what would the wireless speed be?

I think the best you can expect is 4Mbits/second (out of 11Mbits/second), so you seem to be a bit short. 802.11g should give a best of 19Mbits/second (out of 54Mbits/second).

Have you tried changing channels? Perhaps you are clashing with a neighbour.

What is in the way between the router and the laptop? To only get 1.1Mbps (0.5Mbps in either direction) suggests a couple of brick walls

Thanks for your response. I have used optmizer in the past without any improvement. I get 6.2 meg connection speed on my wired desktop. I think I have left the channel no default. Any idea what is the optimum or is it trial and error? Am I right that the channel is on the router?

Regardless where the laptop is even within 2 meters off the router I get the same speed which is about 1.1 meg.

1.1Meg as in 1.1 Mega bits per second reported by what? A speedtest such as our own, or the pop-up icon saying at what speed the wireless card is connected?

The 824M is fairly old, and it may be the 802.11b card you are using is also old, and they just don't work that well together.

802.11b should manage connections of 11Mbps when in the same average sized room, giving a maximum speedtest of around 4 to 5Mbps.

802.11g, will connect at 54Mbps in that case, and speed tests of 15-23Mbps should be possible. Assuming the broadband connection will feed data fast enough into the property.

I carried out a speed test on our site after putting the laptop opposite the router, it showed 1.5 meg. Well short of the 4/5 meg anticipated. The router is on channel 11. Can anybody suggest a different alternative or should I just experiment!! I know that the router is old, but it never gave any connection/trouble.

Experimenting is the way, since others may not have the same laptop as you, and its wireless may be the bottleneck.

The MTU and RWIN values can be an issue, you say you tried various values, but what does http://www.broadbandreports.com/tweaks report?

Also what speed is the wireless link reporting? NOTE: Not the results of a speedtest, but the actual wireless speed that the router and computer have settled onto. If they are close to each other I would expect 11Mbps, but some cards let you tweak this down, and its possible you have your card limited to a 3Mbps wireless link.

NOTE: Devices like video senders can cause havoc with Wi-Fi signals.