# 10/100 vs 10/100/1000



## TheShooter93 (Jul 10, 2008)

Hey TSG,

My router is by Linksys and it is a wireless G router 10/100. What does the 10/100 mean?

Also, I know that 10/100/1000 is the equivalent to a "gigabit" router, but what exactly does _that_ mean? I know that data can travel faster or what have you, but if I replace d my 10/100 router with a 10/100/1000 (wireless G still) what would the effects be?

Also, what is the big difference of wireless N? Again, I know the basics but would like some further explanation. Also, assuming I had a network adapter that could receive wireless N, what would the effects be if I had a wireless N "gigabit" router?

Thanks for reading this, and just so you know this is a purely hypothetical situation. Just to advance my knowledge.


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

The 10/100 is the speed of the switch side (LAN) ports on the router. The 10/100/1000 models have a gigabit switch as part of the router.

Why not read about all the IEEE 802.11 specifications. Much of the information you're asking about is available doing a simple search.


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## TheShooter93 (Jul 10, 2008)

Oh, ok. Well thank you for the response. But as far as the LAN ports go, what is the significance of having a gigabit switch as opposed to the 10/100?


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## Soundy (Feb 17, 2006)

10 refers to 10 megabit per second network speed (10Mbps) - "mega" being the term for "million".
100 means 100Mbps, or 100 million bits per second.
1000 means 1000 megabits... or 1 gigabit, or 1 billion bits per second.

When a router or switch says "10/100", that means the each port supports both connection speeds, and will usually auto-switch depending on what's plugged into it. Very few things anymore run at 10Mbps, but it doesn't affect anything for them to maintain backward compatibility.

Stating that a switch or router is "Gigabit" really means the same thing as 10/100/1000 - it supports all three speed levels and will auto-switch to the appropriate one when something is plugged in.

With a network switch (and keep in mind, the LAN ports in a router ARE effectively a switch as well), each port's speed can be set independently of the others; the switch will handle any translation necessary.

Wireless "N" refers to the latest standard for WiFi; more specifically, it refers to the spec "802.11n", where 802 is the IEEE designation for the specs for local area networks and .11 is the subsection dealing with wireless LANs (more commonly dubbed "WiFi").

From there, there are subsections defining different variations for frequency, speed, distance, and other factors. 802.11a is out there but rarely used at the consumer level. 802.11b was the first common version used in consumer wireless and supported up to 11Mbps. 802.11g was the next and supported up to 54Mbps. 

802.11n is the latest release and supports higher power output, a higher frequency range, speeds up to 108Mbps, and greater distances, as well as other changes. An "N" card or adapter in the remote device (laptop, computer, phone, etc.) is required to get the full speed and range, as a connection will always fall back to the lowest common denominator (eg. if you have "B" card in your laptop, the fastest connection you'll get is 11Mbps), but you CAN still get improved range from an N router, even with an older B or G adapter. Remember that B/G/N specs all support backward compatibility.

How this affects a gigabit router is minimal. Theoretically, a full-speed N connection at 108Mbps would be faster than the 100Mbps ports on your router, so those would become the speed bottleneck in a data transfers, and you'd need to go to a gigabit port to get past it. HOWEVER, that would also require that whatever's plugged into it have a gigabit port, or like the wireless, that connection will drop back to whatever the slowest part of the chain is.

That's all in theory... in reality, you'll probably see faster transfers through the 100Mbps network port than through the 108Mbps wireless connection anyway. The main reason for getting a gigabit router would be faster transfers between machines plugged into it with their own gigabit adapters.


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## TheShooter93 (Jul 10, 2008)

Thank you very much for your detailed explanation. It answered every question I had and more. Truly, I can't thank you enough.


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## TerryNet (Mar 23, 2005)

Actually 802.11n supports a nominal connection up to 300 Mbps.


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## Soundy (Feb 17, 2006)

^Ah, right you are, I was thinking of things like D-Link's proprietary "Xtreme-G" that doubles the G throughput.


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## TerryNet (Mar 23, 2005)

You're allowed to get one number wrong in a nice, long post like that.


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