Growing trend of deploying dual-mode wireless LANs.

[spidey07]

Well after watching the trends in the industry and for a long while dismissing 802.11a as a "why would you ever?" technology the last few years have changed my mind.

From a technology perspective A is clearly "better" than B/G. The 2.4 Ghz spectrum is littered with other devices and it is very common to have interfference from non-network type devices.

We're rolling out 100s of dual-mode wireless LANs (access points have both B/G and A radios installed) and the difference in performance between B/G and A is simply astounding. Not to mention that with the wide range of non-overlapping channels of 802.11a you can completely blanket an area and have all the bandwidth you need.

So IMHO, its not a RF/Frequency issue as it is an actual implmentation of the technology that makes A superior for wide scale coverage/performance.

 

[ScottMac]

Well, yeah ... that's certainly the way I see it.

I use 'a' for the laptops, g/b is only up for guests and to feed the Airport Expresses and PSPs (at home).

Too much crap on g/b.

I do still maintain a honeypot on one of my spare 'b' systems (3COM 8K and an old laptop). Anything downloaded and executed will eat their machine down to the ROMs.

At work, I have a five Cisco AP WDS system that's up five and six floors. "They" bought high-gain omnis (stupid humans) ... so now I get signal from over a mile distant on almost every AP (on g ... too much interference...it's overloading the APs) on 'a' ... no problem.

Some would use one channel for the AP function, and the other channel for bridging / backbone connectivity in an all-wireless (well, "mostly wireless") system.

The big question is, are you going fat or skinny? Gonna use Cisco? Extreme? Foundry? Oronoco? Nortel (MESH?)?

Have you looked at the L3 roaming capability? Is that something you're looking to do? Something like wireless IP telephony? Wait till you see (if you haven't) the new generation cellular / 802.11 wireless phones. PBX to the Park Bench and seamless roaming in and out of your wireless domain is not too far away.

Cisco SWAN is a very good way to go, fat or skinny. The WLSE makes management as easy as it's likely to get, and the L3 roaming provided by the WLSM is also an excellent performer (so far, in the Lab; I have nothing in production).

Anyway, that's my .02.

The real secret to successful wireless implementation is a solid site survey. Get some real tools, or hire a good consultant that owns the real tools and do it right. The proper antennas in the right place makes a world of difference on any frequency.

Good Luck

Scott

 

[spidey07]

dude, you already know I'm doing SWAN installations every month with hundreds of APs per site (with accompanity WLSM/WLSE pairs per site( with full redundancy and site recovery.

psssssh.

ps - new software is out to fix most of the major bugs.

Cellular companies are pushing hard for the 802.11 VoIP/cellular hand off. may be looking into it. Already have cell repeaters scattered throughout the plants.

Should we waggle our e-penises more or just have some fun?
😉

 

[spidey07]

Lastly...

A "good site survey" is completely true. But in my experience nobody knows how to do a site survey. The come in and place a few access point where they think they should be and run net stumbler on it.

that is NOT a site survey.

Using the WLSE we are able to perform a much better survey ourselves.

 

[JackMDS]

LOL.

Life is really good when money does not need to be pinched 😉

:sun:

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: JackMDS
LOL.

Life is really good when money does not need to be pinched 😉

:sun:

Hey, when company says "we want seamless wireless everywher no matter what it costs" you give it to them.

 

[nweaver]

I also believe that a setup of Cisco AP's running IOS with WLSE makes for a very SECURE wireless enviorment. I'll bet a rogue ap goes less then 10 minutes before Spidey has it pinpointed and shut down, and someone filling their cardboard box.


WLSE is INCREDIBLE, btw

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: nweaver
I also believe that a setup of Cisco AP's running IOS with WLSE makes for a very SECURE wireless enviorment. I'll bet a rogue ap goes less then 10 minutes before Spidey has it pinpointed and shut down, and someone filling their cardboard box.


WLSE is INCREDIBLE, btw

The rogue AP detection is pretty slick. It will actually detect it and shut the switch port that it is attached to down. Also picks up adhoc wireless networks as well.

 

[Goosemaster]

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: nweaver
I also believe that a setup of Cisco AP's running IOS with WLSE makes for a very SECURE wireless enviorment. I'll bet a rogue ap goes less then 10 minutes before Spidey has it pinpointed and shut down, and someone filling their cardboard box.


WLSE is INCREDIBLE, btw

The rogue AP detection is pretty slick. It will actually detect it and shut the switch port that it is attached to down. Also picks up adhoc wireless networks as well.

holey mother of god that is sweet:shoked;