As the Apple Turns: Scene 3973: "Actual Speed Will Vary" (5/27/03)

"Actual Speed Will Vary" (5/27/03)

Geez, you try to give people a little of the hand-wringing, nail-biting drama they so desperately need in their otherwise bleak and miserable lives, and how do they repay you? By throwing facts in your face. Poor Computerworld; barely a day had passed since it reported that the final spec for 802.11g (the wireless technology used in AirPort Extreme) had been "throttled down" from its original 54 Mbps data rate to a measly "between 10 and 20 Mbps" before Apple's veeps had to go and spoil the fun by, you know, telling the actual truth and stuff.

According to MacCentral, the undisputed King of the Ten-Minute Auto-Refresh, Apple Software Veep Mike Bell insists that the spec has in fact "not been throttled back at all," prompting MacCentral to label Computerworld's report as "meaningless." (Ouch. Words can hurt like a fist, guys.) The gist is that 802.11g's raw data rate is, indeed, 54 Mbps-- but that's just the speed at which the radios talk to each other. Once you actually want to do something useful with that connection, like send a file over TCP/IP, the maximum real-world throughput is only about 20 Mbps. This is still a massive (dare we say... "extreme"?) performance increase over the 802.11b used in the original version of AirPort, which has a raw data rate of 11 Mbps and a real-world throughput of "between 4 and 5.5 Mbps."

"What's this?" you ask, "The 11 Mbps AirPort equipment I've been using for three and a half years really tops out at 5 Mbps max?" Well, sure, Sparky. If you only use it for broadband surfing you'd never notice, since most broadband connections don't even come close to 5 Mbps, let alone 11. But just for giggles, we grabbed a stopwatch and timed how long it took us to send a 9.4 MB QuickTime copy of Kevin Smith's "The Flying Car" from one node to another via AirPort, and the calculator tells us we got a whopping 3.76 Mbps. If it weren't for Mike Bell's clarification, we'd think our Base Station had been at the cough syrup again.

While it's great news that the final 802.11g spec won't make AirPort Extreme any slower than it is now, we're a little nonplussed by the vast gulf of emptiness hanging between the 54 Mbps spec and its 10-20 Mbps real-world performance. It's one thing to buy an 80 GB disk only to find it has a 74.5 GB formatted capacity; that's only a 7% discrepancy. And opening up a box of Froot Loops to find that it's only half-full, well, there is that little label about "this unit packed by weight, not by volume; some settling of contents may occur." (On a side note, don't bother calling Battle Creek and demanding to know why they don't package the contents until after it settles; they're just no help at all.)

But Apple's web site states that AirPort Extreme "lets you share files with other AirPort Extreme users on your network at speeds of up to 54 Mbps," which, as far as we can make out, just isn't possible; even under the best conditions, users probably won't ever see half that kind of speed. Then again, Apple does include a disclaimer that "actual speed will vary based on range, connection rate, and other factors." Among "other factors" we suppose we could list "presence or absence of a magical wish-granting frog that can alter the physical laws of time, space, and dimension," but it still seems like a stretch. Nevertheless, iffy marketing claims aside, the bottom line is that AirPort Extreme is much faster than AirPort, and it won't suffer a speed cutback due to the final 802.11g spec. Good news all around.

Meanwhile, Greg Joswiak, Apple's Veep of Hardware Product Marketing, remarks that he feels "really good about [Apple's] decision" to use 802.11g instead of the slightly-faster but shorter-range and incompatible 802.11a standard, but "unfortunately there are some folks out there that are making a last-ditch effort to try to cause confusion in the market." Holy cats, are we interpreting this correctly? Is Greg implying that the Computerworld article wasn't just the product of some yahoo who didn't do his homework, but was instead a deliberate smear piece commissioned by an unscrupulous pro-802.11a conspiracy? Clearly we missed the real drama here-- that AirPort Extreme is under attack by Freemasons and the Illuminati. Man, we are losing our touch...

SceneLink (3973)

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The above scene was taken from the 5/27/03 episode:

May 27, 2003: Apple clarifies the 54 Mbps-vs. 20 Mbps AirPort Extreme controversy-- sort of. Meanwhile, Apple.com totally destroys all other computer manufacturers' web sites when it comes to number of visits, but why are all those visits so short? And Steve and Bill at the same conference? Surely wacky and/or violent hijinks will ensue...

Other scenes from that episode:

3974: Open To Interpretation (5/27/03) Ah, statistics; it's all in how you interpret them. Numbers dance with a mere change in attitude. Take, for instance, last week's Internet Retailer article which reported that according to Nielsen/NetRatings, Apple's web site completely obliterated all other computer hardware manufacturers' sites when it came to sheer volume of traffic; for the week of May 11th, Apple.com was loaded by "3.75 million unique visitors," which comes out to "73.7% of all visitors to hardware sites."...
3975: D:Lightfully D:Structive (5/27/03) Just a quick note, in hopes that this might blossom into a full-fledged melodrama for tomorrow's episode: we noticed over at Macworld UK that today marks the beginning of the Wall Street Journal's "D: All Things Digital" conference-- and both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are scheduled to speak...

Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast...


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