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I'm buying a Wireless-N router for my parent's house for Christmas. They have a rather large house (around 6,000 sq. ft.) so I am going to get them an N router since they will likely need the additional range.

I'm also giving them a laptop which has wireless-G built into it.

My question is this: They don't need the speed benefits of Wireless-N (only DSL is available to them because they live out in the country) but they do need the distance benefits. Would the internal wireless-G NIC in the laptop allow them to reap the distance benefits of the wireless-N router or do I need to puchase a USB wireless-N adapter for them as well?

I haven't been able to find a certain answer on the internet so I'm hoping you guys can help me out.

Thanks in advance.

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Take a look at this question. – AndrejaKo Dec 10 '10 at 13:07
edited my answer for clarification – aking1012 Dec 10 '10 at 13:11
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No it won't. Typically the router drops its operating mode to the lowest card on the network. In the case of a MIMO router, it will use one set of IO operating as G and the others to listen for N connections

Do get the N card.

here's a link: http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/tutorials/article.php/3680781/80211n-Delivers-Better-Range.htm

They speculate that G clients got better coverage. It had to do with not falling back to lower data rates though, not actually achieving longer distances (where there would have been NO connectivity)

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Then I'm glad I asked...thanks for the quality answer! – JEP Dec 10 '10 at 13:33
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