In response to your first question: Depending on where you live 15/MBs might be the standard. In Minnesota Comcast only goes up to 10/MBs *shakes fist* ;-) , but hey it works.

Without getting too technical here, if you go with something that has a higher throughput, you'll be able to receive more data over your link. Throughput is just a fancy way of putting: data over time, delivered over n-specific link. Almost everything has a throughput, even printers. As far as a home router is concerned most of the stuff you'll find in local shops is around 40 - 60 Mb/s. You're not going to be able to achieve higher speeds than that anyway, unless you're using a Fiberoptical line (which is a topic for another post)... Also, 54/Mbps is the standard data rate for 802.11g (802.11g is the most standardized type of networking protocol on the market right now - previously there was 802.11 b, which ran at 11 Mb/s - there's also N , which is faster than g, but still buggy as all hell, so I'd recommend you stay away from that... unless you like headaches ;-) )

You're starting in the right point though by having a good router in place to handle all of your gaming needs. Let me know if I can be of any more assistance.

Rin