if I swap out my 802.11b router for a newer 802.11g one, will I see a considerable speed boost of web surfing on my iPhone? The iphone is the only wifi unit in the house,.

Yes. 802.11g is faster then 802.11b, and not only will internet be faster, the range of your network will be extended.

the short answer: probably not.

the long answer: the speed limit of 802.11b is 11Mbps (megabits per second) which is probably faster than your internet connection. the fastest home internet connections nowadays are between 1 and 10 Mbps, and so your limiting factor is probably not the router. if you had two computers sharing files with one another on your wifi network, you would notice a major improvement in that speed if you switched to g since that activity is not limited by having to pass through your DSL or cable connection.

as klass4 says, the big improvement you will see is range; g goes a lot further. it will probably also drain your iphone battery slightly faster, but you probably won’t notice the difference.

samkusnetz is right. The bottleneck is your internet connection.

Sam is correct…give the man a prize..will ya?