richms: You still will see a speed increase so long as the slow devices are not saturating the wireless.
That's true and by all accounts and reports from other posters the TP-Link TD-WN8960 is a good performer.
One (@MurrayM) may be embarking on a utopian ideal at some considerable time and cost to achieve it.
If one just needs WiFi access to the 'net' then a modem with 2.4GHz WiFi is all you really need. (approx $110.00)
However, if moving to the next level I would strongly suggest a dedicated ADSL modem and a dedicated 2.4GHz/5GHz router. (approx $300 - $400 for all devices)
If your 802.11g devices are not powered on and transmitting/receiving all the time or you're only using a single device (or two) at any given time, then WiFi will handle it.
I have an 802.11g mobile phone sitting right next to me and a dual stream 802.11n 300Mbps notebook being used.
With the phone just idling, my notebook is able to achieve a 70Mbps download at 15metres over the 2.4GHz frequency using 802.11n protocol on a 40MHz channel.
If I set the router to only operate on 802.11g and repeat the same download I only get 20.8Mbps. This is about right for 802.11g at 15metres.
So even with an active 802.11g device on the network while operating on a 802.11n device, I'm still able to achieve downloads speeds far in excess of any 802.11g connection speed at 54Mbps and the impact of the idle 802.11g device on the network is indiscernible.
If both devices are just sitting sending keep-alives and etc the connection speed on the 802.11n device and the router operating in mix mode 802.11g/n will quite often reflect a connection speed of only 54Mbps. This is dynamic and the 802.11n connection will flick back up to 162Mbps ..or whatever depending on distance.
As there can only be one transmit/receive conversation on a WiFi radio AP at one time and you have numerous 802.11n and 802.11g devices all transmitting and receiving then the network for the 802.11n devices can appear to be slower for the duration of those conversions.
So back on topic, for most people a single frequency 2.4GHz modem supporting ADSL2, 802.11g/n WiFi protocols and 100Mb Ethernet is all you need.
Are you subscribed to our RSS feed? You can download the latest headlines and summaries from our stories directly
to your computer or smartphone by using a feed reader.