What does the 'm' letter mean exactly on wireless adapters or routers?

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AssemblerX86

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Jul 29, 2014
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Hi,

What does the "m" letter mean when it comes to wifi adapters or routers? For example 150M or 300M.

Many people say its the range of the device wireless in meters, like the adapter has a coverage of 150 or 300 meters.

But I always thought that it refers to the maximum connection speed in mbps, so which is correct?

Best wishes
 
Solution
nukemaster
I have always thought of it as megabit/sec as well.

I mean you can get 150 and maybe even 300 meters out of some of the higher power routers if you set them up outside. I a building that range gets a HUGE cut.


Wireless tends to use about half of its bandwidth for collision avoidance since open air collisions are not detected like they are over a cable or other physical medium. Because of this a 300 megabit/sec adapter will generally get about 150megabit/sec(that is 18.75 megabytes/sec)
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nukemaster

nukemaster

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I have always thought of it as megabit/sec as well.

I mean you can get 150 and maybe even 300 meters out of some of the higher power routers if you set them up outside. I a building that range gets a HUGE cut.


Wireless tends to use about half of its bandwidth for collision avoidance since open air collisions are not detected like they are over a cable or other physical medium. Because of this a 300 megabit/sec adapter will generally get about 150megabit/sec(that is 18.75 megabytes/sec)
 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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The router connection speed can be beneficial when transferring data between two or more devices connected to that router.
A higher speed has nothing to do with how fast you transfer data to and from the outside world. That all depends on your ISP plan.

Also, that "300m" is only theoretical. Under controlled conditions, when the two devices are right next to each other, and the only devices connected...you might see something approaching that.
Real world....probably not. It is a guideline. a 300Mbps router is 'faster' than a 150Mbps router.
 
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bill001g

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Aug 9, 2012
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This is where the word "coverage" get vastly abused. The actual amount of radio signal you are allowed to transmit is regulated by the government and hasn't changed since old wireless first came out. So if you get 50% level at 10ft from the router on 802.11b you will get 50% level at 10ft on 802.11n. What has changed is the amount of data you can get into the radio bandwidth. So at 10ft at 50% level you might get 1m at 802.11b and 10m at 802.11n. The messy definition problem is if you say "coverage" is the distance I can run at say 10m. You obviously can run at 10m at further distance on the newer devices BUT when you hit 0% level both will run at 0m/sec. So the signal does not actually go farther but people opinion on how useful the signal when the signal starts getting weak varies a bit. The key is if you get no signal it does not matter what encoding of data you do your will still get no signal.

 
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