Wireless Info. Please Post

[JackMDS]

There is two major issues concerning Wireless networks that can not be answered by mainstream information.

1. Can you mix Wireless Access Points, and Wireless Cards form different Brands, with wep (encryption) on.

As an example: Would D-Link DWL 120, Lucent Orinoco, etc. work with SMC Wireless Barricade.


2. What actual distance, and Speed you get from various combinations.

Please post if you have mixed brands system working in your setting.

 

[BaDaBooM]

I know you can mix brands. I think there are two major types, but I can't remember what they are called. Just so your access points and your cards are the same type. I have used the SMC wireless barricade with the Lucent Orinocco card. At the time it worked but not with WEP encryption. However since then SMC has released a firmware update to fix that problem.

 

[JackMDS]

Bump

 

[BaDaBooM]

Check out http://www.practicallynetworked.com if you haven't already; under their reviews section.

 

[mikek]

I just installed a Linksys WAP and am using the D-link USB wireless card. They work fine together although I did have to download the latest Linksys shareware and firmware to get the Access Point working.

 

[JackMDS]

I checked all of http://www.practicallynetworked.com (including the forums).
There are little bits of info concerning this specific issue, but far from what is necessary to make the right decision.

PC Magazine has a write up (March 6) on Wireless Networking. But it is one of their semi commercial endeavors that tells you that every thing is good, when you take the perspective of the cooperate IT. Who perceive comfortable installation more important then user functionality.


Mikek thank you, that exactly the type of info that I am looking for.

Do you have some notion about distance capacity?

 

[JackMDS]

TTT

 

[Nosferatu]

Without using an access point, running ad hoc, I got about 135 feet before I lost signal completely. I just got an access point from Linksys. Hopefully that increases my range and signal strength. Oh both PCMCIA cards were Linksys as well.

 

[BaDaBooM]

I was referring to that site under reviews for a review on the barricade router. I guess you didn't look hard enough.... They also have wireless networking information under networking. Here is a direct link that at least answers your first question:

http://www.practicallynetworked.com/networking/alternative_net_wireless.htm

To quote from it,

<< There are three 2.4GHz based wireless technologies to consider:

802.11b Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS)
(also known as &quot;High Rate&quot



802.11 Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS)



Bluetooth

>>



DSSS and FHSS were the two I couldn't remember. Blue tooth is more for short range appliance type stuff. It goes on further with some more info like speed at various distances down towards the bottom.
Hope this helps.

 

[Eug]

As far as I'm concerned HomeRF (FHSS) will quickly die, unless they can somehow come out with the 10 Mbps stuff very soon, and undercut the 802.11b prices.

The reason I say this is because 802.11b is already 11 Mbps, and just about everybody is making the hardware --> becoming reasonably cheap. Plus, several companies and academic institutions are now going 802.11b for their laptop users - it has become the defacto standard. I think it would be mistake to buy HomeRF unless you can get it really cheap.

Anyways, the stuff that meets the 802.11b standard is supposedly to communicate with each other, as long as you have the appropriate hardware, and have correctly configured the stuff.

 

[JackMDS]

May be I should clarify what I am looking for.

My question (and the hardware that I mentioned) relates to WiFi 802.11b.
The majority of SoHo Wireless equipment, coming form D-Link, SMC, Lucent, LinkSys, is adhering to WiFi 802.11b.

In theory all the equipment that are sold, and labeled by the manufactures as WiFi 802.11b, should work together.

Unfortunately, it seems that it is NOT so.

Two issues seem to emerge:

1. Some combination of Wireless Router, and Wireless Cards seem to have problems communicating when encryption is enabled. Some people attribute it to the differences in chipsets (Lucent &amp; Intersil).

2. In many cases, the communication distance seems to be much shorter then what claimed by the Manufacture.

What I got till now from this thread:

BaDaBooM, reports that if you use the latest firmware. SMC Wireless Barricade and Lucent Orinoco, will work together.

Mikek, reports that Linksys WAP and D-link USB wireless card, work together.

Nosferatu, reports that running Linksys wireless cards ad hoc, he gets about 135FT (ad hoc means running communication between two wireless cards without access point).

Keep it coming please.

 

[Fallen Kell]

I've actually been researching this for the last 2-3 weeks. Here is what I have found so far:

You can mix/match different brands IF they are all certified IEEE802.11 (well I think that is it) of 802.11(b) certified. The cards can be either 802.11 or 802.11(b). These will fully work with each other, but you will need an 802.11(b) access point to get the benifits of the 802.11(b) cards (the 802.11 cards will still only work as good as 802.11 no matter what). The main differences in the 2 standards is IEEE802.11 only can connect at 2Mbps or 1Mbps. The 802.11(b) can connect at 11Mbps, 5.5Mbps, 2Mbps, and 1Mbps. These also seem to have better encryption options on them.

If you are going to be using encryption (and I HIGHLY suggest that you do) your access point will need to be the one that supports the formats. If your access point supports 40-bit WEP encryption, you can use 40-bit WEP encryption. Newer access points also support 64-bit WEP encryption and 128-bit RC4 encryption. Both the card and the access point need to support the same level of encryption in an AP network configuration (AP= Access Point).

There are 2 different network configurations, AP and AH (Add-Hock). The AH configuration does not require an access point (at least I don't think it does, but if there is no access point everything will only work like a LAN with no route to the internet). In AH, each client will only be able to communicate with the others within its effective range IEEE802.11's range is 200M outdoors, 30M indoors. IEEE802.11(b) is 350M outdoors and 50M indoors. You would only be able to communicate with devices/computers within that range in an AH setup. In AP, you can talk to any system within range of the access point, effectively doubling the range (more so if multiple access points are setup with overlapping ranges).

To use a cellular type AP setup, your card must support roaming abilities and cell switching. Most cards support this now.

Basically what I am saying is that any certified card will work in the system with other certified access points/certified cards. I HIGLY recommend using the Lucent Orinoco Gold wireless card. It is IEEE802.11(b) and supports 128-bit RC4 encryption. It also has drivers for Win9x, Win NT, and Linux (for Linux drivers use the wylan driver).

Hope this helps you out.

 

[BaDaBooM]

I heard (though I can't confirm) that the WEP encryption that most current wireless products use is not effective. It uses a hex number to base it's encryption off of and I've heard that you can simply use a sniffer to find out that number because it is transmitted in plain text. Is this true? Also does the RC4 encryption have the same problem? I haven't seen an access point that supports it yet, though I haven't looked.

 

[Eug]

<< If your access point supports 40-bit WEP encryption, you can use 40-bit WEP encryption. Newer access points also support 64-bit WEP encryption and 128-bit RC4 encryption. >>

I could be wrong of course, but my understanding was that 64-bit and 40-bit WEP were the same thing, just using different terminology. Somebody please clarify.

JackMDS, if you want more combos of what works together, check out www.practicallynetworked.com.

 

[JackMDS]

TTT