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I was wondering if anyone had any input on wireless home networks? Experiences good or bad? Here's my latest encounter.

I went to set up a new network at my residence not too long ago, and opted for the Intel AnyPoint 1.6 Mb/s wireless network. Rather than going through the hassle of running kitty-kat5 cable all through the place, I thought I would try out this new fangled wireless technology. 1.6 Mb/s sounded pretty good. So I got 4 modules (About $100 a piece) and installed them on 4 different machines, using one as the server.

Installation was easy, and all the machines were recognized without much problem. We were able to surf the net at a reasonable although not remarkable speed, and email worked fine.

But when you measure transfer from one machine to the next, it topped out at about 50 kb/s, which seems slow since it's touted as a 1.6 Mb/s system. So after some investigation, it turns out that 1.6 is the TOTAL figure, and over half of that is used for local network information. So over 800 kb/s is used to let each computer know the other machines are there. And the remaining 800 kb/s is divided in HALF (for inbound and outbound) and then each of those is divided between every machine on the network. So instead of being 1.6 Mb/s, you can only get about 50-100 kb/s max to any individual computer. This kind of sucks.

The software also seemed to use a large portion of the server's resources, and the server eventually started developing spontanious blue-screen-of-death syndrome. Peer-to-peer programs, such as Napster, don't work across this network either.

Anyways, the Intel AnyPoint system does work, but it sure isn't what I had hoped. So I was wondering if anyone had input on some different wireless networks, or if I should just stick with an old fashioned router and cables.

Thanks for the time and space,

peace