Why Does 802.11a Struggle with Penetration Compared to 802.11g?

[jastewart]

I am looking into why 802.11a does not permeate as well as 802.11g. I know that they are different freq. Does this mean a different cell size per packet as well?

 

[jedishrfu]

I think its mostly the strength of the signal:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11

there's a table in the article for each subtype of 802.11

 

[RFMatt]

Almost all of the extra range comes from the different frequencies, the 2.4GHz band that 802.11g operates in attenuates significantly less than the 5GHz band that 802.11a operates in. As frequency increases (wavelength decreases) the ability to penetrate objects goes down (generally, some exceptions).

As an extreme example, visible light is the same stuff as wifi signals (EM radiation), yet is unable to penetrate even thin paper due to its extremely high frequency.

 

[jastewart]

Almost all of the extra range comes from the different frequencies, the 2.4GHz band that 802.11g operates in attenuates significantly less than the 5GHz band that 802.11a operates in. As frequency increases (wavelength decreases) the ability to penetrate objects goes down (generally, some exceptions).

As an extreme example, visible light is the same stuff as wifi signals (EM radiation), yet is unable to penetrate even thin paper due to its extremely high frequency.

Thank you! Excellent!