Dualband 802.11a/g

In today's age, knowing multiple languages is beneficial both in the workplace and at home. The same concept applies to wireless networking. Dualband technology is the equivalent of a bilingual person, except that dualband uses wireless radio waves to communicate instead.

The most common dualband technology used today is with Wi-Fi's 802.11a and 802.11g. Even though they are both IEEE standards, they are considered different "languages" because they operate on different frequencies and therefore cannot communicate with each other. Dualband wireless networking devices, such as a dualband router or access point, are essentially creating TWO wireless networks, each network using a different frequency "band." This is where the terms "dual networks" or "dualband" come from.

More Info:

• So how does dualband technology work?
• What's in it for me to use dualband technology?
• How do I know how to choose between single band (802.11g) versus dualband?

So how does dualband technology work?

There are different methods that can be used in order to provide 802.11a and 802.11g wireless signals from a single AP. The method that D-Link uses is the most efficient in that the AP has two internal radios, one for each band that can simultaneously broadcast 802.11a signals in the 5GHz band and 802.11g signals in the 2.4GHz band. This allows for each band to work independently of each other. What this means is that with dualband, you can have 2x more people connect to your access point or router because of the two networks available. There are other methods from different companies that aren't as efficient. Instead of using two radios to broadcast both 802.11a and 802.11g signals simultaneously, they use 1 radio which supports both bands-but can only transmit one signal per band at a single time. This allows only half as many wireless clients (compared to your 2x) to connect to the access point or router.

What's in it for me to use dualband technology?

The main reason why some consumers or network administrators would want to invest in a dualband network is because they want "future proof" their network and to segment the traffic on their network based on the bandwidth needed. For example, a graphics design companies relies heavily on multimedia applications. So in this instance, all multimedia related applications would run on the 802.11a band because there is less interference. All other applications, like e-mailing clients or researching the web would be running on the 802.11g band. Let's use the home for example. Dad's projects are more important than the son downloading music or the daughter chatting with her friends. Dad can work on the 802.11a band and have the maximum bandwidth all to himself while the kids share the 802.11g band.

How do I know how to choose between single band (802.11g) versus dualband?

Typically, dualband products are typically slightly more expensive than your average single band product. Invest only in dualband if you know that the users on your network have client adapters that use different bands, or if you just need that extra bandwidth.

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