Wireless Lan Questions

[vOlTaGe]

I want to augment my LAN which is 10/100 switched. I work for my school's IT department and got a taste to wireless goodness. Cisco sent a demo Aironet 350 and a couple PC cards. It rocked.
My question concerns the interoperability of wireless LAN products. Can a Cisco PC card talk to a Linksys WAP? They both use 802.11b. Who besides Cisco makes a good WAP. I cannot afford an Aironet 350 as much as I want one.

Thanks for any help.

 

[n0cmonkey]

They SHOULD all work together without problems. That is why the standards have been setup. But Im curious about this too (just to hear people's stories).

 

[JackMDS]

Any descent WIFI(802.11b) can talk to another WIFI (802.11b).

 

[Tallgeese]

<< My question concerns the interoperability of wireless LAN products. Can a Cisco PC card talk to a Linksys WAP? They both use 802.11b. Who besides Cisco makes a good WAP. >>

Orinoco (Lucent) makes good stuff. A bit more affordable, too.

As far as interoperability, it kinda goes like this:
* Basic connectivity will work just fine between 802.11b hardware.
* Any value-added software, however, typically won't work with products from different vendors.

So, when evaluating, keep in mind that the snazzy profile creation and deployment tool, or signal strength indicator, or site surveying application, etc. may or may not work in a multi-vendor setup.

FWIW

BTW: 802.11b WEP encryption has been cracked, and proven completely useless for securing a WLAN. If you have any security concerns about the traffic flying over your LAN, you may want to be cautious implementing a wireless segment.