Hi,

It has been my experience that even the same wifi device will have
much greater range and connection stability when running in 802.11b
mode. I've been using very recent routers from Netgear and Linksys,
including the much famed WRT54G, all rated for 802.11g.

And yet, at the same channel and in the very same locations, where I
would get a 6 to 10% packet loss over the 802.11g network, I get 0% PL
and lower average latencies in 802.11b mode. This behavior was
consistent throughout a bunch of different computers and WiFi
adapters. Even when transferring files, speeds are not as different as
they should be (11 mbit/s vs 54 mbit/s, if I'm not mistaken.) That's
mostly because I've never seen actual speeds anywhere near 54 Mbit/s
in my network.

My question is, is this something to be expected due to the
characteristics of the 802.11g technology, or is this due to
"contingent" factors such as poor manufacturer implementation of the
standard and/or local conditions of the network?

See here:

http://www.wirelessnetdesignline.com/howto/53200149

Apparantly, 802.11g is somewhat less tolerant to noise, and therefore
you can only get the higest of speeds at shorter ranges.  At a certain
point, b gets better data rates for a given range.