The is by no means a scientific test (results may vary by the device and WiFi router you use), so don’t go knocking on the door of HTC or AT&T complaining that you’re not getting fast enough WiFi speeds. That said, I’m still surprised at these results – compared to 802.11b, 802.11g is just 10% and 11% faster in terms of connection speed and latency, respectively.

I always assumed this to be the case without actually testing it. I remember using the wireless on my Dell Axim with 802.11b. Then months later, when I got a device with 802.11g, namely the Vox S710, there wasn’t much of an increase in speed that I could perceive.

Just to be sure that the website I used, dslreports.com/mspeed, wasn’t the problem, I took out an iPhone, which also has 802.11g. I ran the same test, and the speed was so high (I estimate it to be 5,000mb/s), that it wouldn’t register on the site.

What’s to blame? Why aren’t Windows Mobile devices capable of beyond WiFi-B speeds? It’s tough to say – perhaps it’s a hardware limitation, or perhaps there is some sort of cap on the transfer speed. Your guess is as good as mine.

Update: I should clarify something. The situation that we’d expect to see a speed boost from one wireless protocol to the next is with file transfers, since my internet connection has a maximum speed of 8mb/s (and thus expecting speeds near the 802.11g maximum aren’t possible). That said, we still need to ask why a WM device can only achieve 1/8 of that speed over B or G, when a device like the iPhone or a laptop can come very close to it.