Mixed-brand wireless products....do they work?

[jazzman42379]

Howdy all,

Just curious to see if mixed brand hardware for a wireless network will work together? Specifically, will Cisco wireless products work with non-cisco products? The reason I am curious is because my Student Union on campus can check out laptops with Cisco wireless cards. I recently figured out how to get the Cisco cards to work in my laptop, but have not experimented with mixed brand cards. It's my understanding that Cisco is more of a industrial network maker, and most of their stuff is sold to businesses, rather than individuals. My plan is to use a friend's 3Com wireless card and try to connect. If that doens't work (which I'm not sure why it wouldn't), I may as well get this Cisco card. The question arrises, though, is that if I were to get this Cisco card, would I then be able to use a different brand base station in my home?

I guess the reason I suspect there may be issues is that I am curious if Cisco products have some sort of encryption or something that only lets them work with other Cisco products. If this is not so, then there should be no reason why. Just curious....has anyone had any experience with these? Any Cisco wireless experience?

Thanx in advance,
Jazzman

 

[ScottMac]

My (work) CIsco 340 card works jus' fine with my Orinoco Gateway, The Orinoco card works jus' fine at work (Cisco Aironet). Both worked at Networld + Interop on their wireless access system.

I believe you're pretty safe as long as the components are WIFI (and virtually all of 'em are now....)

You may have to jump through some minor hoops with the WEP key (probably not).

Good Luck

Scott

 

[JackMDS]

Mixture of SMC, Netgear, D-Link, Orinoco.

No Problems.

 

[tweakmm]

yeah, we have a linksys WAP, whatever card comes with dell laptops and a 3Com wireless card and they all work fine