chip used as a WiFi 802.11g radio The then-proposed 802.11g standard was rapidly adopted by consumers starting in January 2003, well before ratification, due to the desire for higher speeds and reductions in manufacturing costs. By mid-2003, most dual-band 802.11a/b products became dual-band/tri-mode, supporting a and b/g in a single mobile adapter card or access point. Despite its major acceptance, 802.11g suffers from the same interference as 802.11b in the already crowded 2.4 GHz range. Devices operating in this range include microwave ovens,
Bluetooth devices, baby monitors, and digital cordless telephones, which can lead to interference issues. Additionally, the success of the standard has caused usage/density problems related to crowding in urban areas. To prevent interference, there are only three non-overlapping usable channels in the U.S. and other countries with similar regulations (channels 1, 6, 11, with 25 MHz separation), and four in Europe (channels 1, 5, 9, 13, with only 20 MHz separation). Even with such separation, some interference due to
side lobes exists, though it is considerably weaker. ==Channels and frequencies==