The range on alfa cards is crap, well on the most popular one anyone way. It only supports G networks which i used less frequently now. If you have a big budget then i would recommend riverbed brand not that i have used there models but i have seen it in use for general sniffing and lab demo via wireshark
Most of all the quality is horrible, not even remotely stable against anything, when you actually move data with it burns and grinds down to a halt.
Drivers on either windows or linux are pathetic at best.
Waste of money.