Wireless A or N better?

[cclloyd9785]

Which mode of wireless is better/faster? I can enable the 5 GHz band on my router for only wireless N laptops, wireless A, or both. So which is faster?

 

[BradJ]

Wireless N has faster speed / better range if your WNIC supports it.

Depending on the model of your device, combining A and N may reduce the overall speed but may offer better environment signal saturation/penetration/stability.

Some devices may use the 2.4Ghz range for normal network traffic and 5Ghz for multimedia/streaming type traffic on the WLAN.

 

[chev65]

Which mode of wireless is better/faster? I can enable the 5 GHz band on my router for only wireless N laptops, wireless A, or both. So which is faster?

N is much faster as 802.11a can only achieve 54Mb/s where N can achieve 300Mb/s or more. Running in mixed mode will reduce the potential speed of 802.11n by a significant amount.

You want to run 802.11n Only mode and use WPA2 with AES encryption if you want the best possible LAN speeds.