802.11 Supported Basic Rates

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/20446-43-wireless-networking-general

    * What does the Basic Rate setting in an access point or wireless router do and how does it differ from the Transmit Rate setting?

The Basic Rate set is the rates that all clients that want to associate with a given access point must support. For 802.11b WLANs, these will be 1, 2, 5.5 and 11Mbps. This information is transmitted by an access point as mandatory rates in the Supported Rates element of various management frames.All current-generation 802.11b products support the 1,2,5.5 and 11Mbps basic rate set. However some very old 802.11b clients may only be able to associate with APs advertising a 1, 2Mbps basic rate set. This is why some APs allow you to change this setting.The Transmit Rate setting is used to set the fastest rate that an AP or wireless router will send data. It can be used to force a lower rate in order to trade off speed for more reliable connection in WLANs where many clients are operating at low signal levels.
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