Which 802.11b equpment should I use

zeruty

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Jan 17, 2000
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I am curious which cards and access points are best

also, what is the low-down on 802.11a.... about how much do they cost?e

we have two linksys cards and a linksys AP..
are these good cards... or are there better brands to go with
 

SaigonK

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Aug 13, 2001
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Linksys cards are ok...for your house.
Alot of the consumer products dont support 128bit WEP, so they are insecure as heck.
Not that 128 can't be broken, but it is allot harder and you would probably notice that guy sitting in his car with a laptop outside you house. :)

The best wireless in my opinion: Cisco - Hands down they are the most secure.
Then I would pick Enterasys and the Nortel.

Keep in mind these are business setups and as such they cost much more $$$. (A cisco setup will cost you close to $1000).

802.11a is not ready for primetime, it has many issues.
One it isnt secure at ALL, two it has amuch shorter range, three because of FCC regulations regarding antennaes on 802.11a units, you get some spotty coverage. (you can't remove the antennaes on an 802.11a unit and replace them or extend them with a wire)

Stick with 802.11b fr now, if you plan to use the unit only in you're home, then a simple home unit from Linksys, Lucent or SMC will do fine. Just be sure to change the default SSID to a new password, and enable all the security features that they each might support.



 

ktwebb

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Nov 20, 1999
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Saigon, could you post a link to this FCC regulation not allowing antennas. Then maybe help Proxim figure out how they are gonna get outta hot water with the FCC. ;) In your defense, your not the first to post this obviously erroneous information and Proxim IS the first to add connectorized AP's to there product line. Hard to imagine others won't follow suit. I kept seeing people say that on BBS's but never could find the first shread of evidence supporting no antennas on 802.11a hardware. If you have a link to the contrary I'd be interested in seeing it as we are migrating our customer base to 802.11a equipment on the LAN side.

http://www.proxim.com/about/pressroom/pressrelease/pr2002-04-01.html

SMA female connectors on the Harmony 8571 which ships WITHOUT antennas.

http://www.proxim.com/products/all/harmony/8570/

Certified antennas for the 8571

802.11a Antennas for the Proxim 8571

Just as an FYI, Proxim is a longstanding player in the wireless LAN community and generally makes quaility hardware. The testing I have done with the 8570, integrated antenna AP, was not that impressive. I attribute it to early drivers on the client cards and immature firmware on the AP.
 

SaigonK

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As far as a link to the regulation I have none, but I can certainly contact our accoutn guys at Cisco, Nortel and Enterasys.

They ALL told us the same thing about the 802.11a standard, NO removable antennaes, perhaps Proxim is doing somethign they should not be.
I will definitely provide the exact specs from Cisco, Nortel and Enterasys when i recieve them, the data i provided was not erroneous, it was what i was told first hand from
three different vendors of ours.

Enterasys is the longest standing wireless player, having inherited their work from Digital.
i imagine they would be correct, but they could be interperting the "rule" in such a way as to make the customer wary..
perhaps a sort of "it could be that you cnat do this so be prepared" statement.


Thanks,
SK
 

ktwebb

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Nov 20, 1999
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Cool. Would like to hear what they have to say. I will get ahold of our Cisco rep tomorrow as well. I was thinking more along the lines of documented text rather than a reps "statement" however. See if they will point you to a webpage when you speak to them. Thanks
 

SaigonK

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ktwebb:

heya, just emailed my guys over at Enterasys, Cisco and Nova-Data.
Will shoot one out to nortel as well tomorrow morning when I get in the office, though i suspect i will here from them all by tonight.
They want us to buy :)

you are correct, I dont remeber them prviding me with any whitepapers on the standard, more just a statement.
i too would like to get a clear standing instead of a "he said, she said".


SK
 

zeruty

Platinum Member
Jan 17, 2000
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we bought a linksys ap and a couple of linksys pcmcia cards a couple of days ago... they seem to work fine, but when I searched the net there seemed to be some disdain out there for linksys
we originally bought a linksys and a netgear pcmcia, but the netgear would only connect at 2mb/s for some reason...even sitting next to the AP

one problem I am having with the linksys cards....
on my dad's laptop (which came preinstalled with windows xp home), when I install the software (which says it supports xp), a few of the tabs are removed from the config utility, including encryption
the only place I can find for the security settings is in window's network properties window... but for encryption, it doesnt let me do 128bit
I have 128bit set up on my AP and my win2k laptop, but I don't know how to get it enabled on my dad's, so the card isnt working yet on there pretty much....
xp only seems to support 104bit, and I have to have a passphrase atleast 13 characters to enable that, which I didn't need on the AP or my laptop... does anyone know how to fix that?
 

zeruty

Platinum Member
Jan 17, 2000
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thanks for the info you guys have already provided, I appreciate the insight