Wi-Fi

The Market
If you're buying WiFi kit right now, look out for 802.11g supported hardware. This is the 'current' standard. If you have any older 802.11b equipment, check that the new kit you are buying is backwards compatible, which is often is. There are even WiFi chipsets supporting a/b/g – all three of the main WiFi specifications. In general however, regardless of whether your equipment supports all three specifications or not, you'll find g to be the favourable option.

There is a new specification in the works, called 802.11n. Data throughput is expected to be roughly 10 times faster than g, also increasing range. However, the specification hasn't been finalised and some technologies are still competing to be included. You can purchase 'pre-n' hardware which has already adopted some of the technology going into 802.11n. If you want bleeding edge performance and don't care about standards or compatibility, then perhaps pre-n is worth a look.

Similarly, some manufacturers enable their own performance enhancements, sometimes by using more than one channel to double theoretical throughput. However, you can expect to sacrifice compatibility with hardware made by other manufacturers. The best advice is to run standards compliant hardware, or at least purchase hardware that can be run in a compatible mode.

The Players
In terms of manufacturers of WiFi equipment, there are quite a few players. There is, of course, Intel, with their much promoted 'Centrino' technology, featuring their Wireless PRO hardware. Other names include Edimax, Asus, Gigabyte, Linksys (part of network giant Cisco), D-Link, Buffalo, the list goes on.

You'll find some of them are very basic, 'get the job done' style items. Others will possess more features to increase performance and usability, but sometimes at the expense of compatibility as we've already covered.

So, plenty of choice of manufacturers. You can afford to investigate the merits of them all to find a product to suit you.