Email Delivery

Receive new posts as email.

Email address

Syndicate this site

RSS | Atom

Contact

About This Site
Contact Us
Privacy Policy

Search


November 2010
Sun Mon Tues Wed Thurs Fri Sat
  1 2 3 4 5 6
7 8 9 10 11 12 13
14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27
28 29 30        

Stories by Category

Basics :: Basics
Casting :: Casting Listen In Podcasts Videocasts
Culture :: Culture Hacking
Deals :: Deals
FAQ :: FAQ
Future :: Future
Hardware :: Hardware Adapters Appliances Chips Consumer Electronics Gaming Home Entertainment Music Photography Video Gadgets Mesh Monitoring and Testing PDAs Phones Smartphones
Industry :: Industry Conferences Financial Free Health Legal Research Vendor analysis
International :: International
Media :: Media Locally cached Streaming
Metro-Scale Networks :: Metro-Scale Networks Community Networking Municipal
Network Types :: Network Types Broadband Wireless Cellular 2.5G and 3G 4G Power Line Satellite
News :: News Mainstream Media
Politics :: Politics Regulation Sock Puppets
Schedules :: Schedules
Security :: Security 802.1X
Site Specific :: Site Specific Administrative Detail April Fool's Blogging Book review Cluelessness Guest Commentary History Humor Self-Promotion Unique Wee-Fi Who's Hot Today?
Software :: Software Open Source
Spectrum :: Spectrum 60 GHz
Standards :: Standards 802.11a 802.11ac 802.11ad 802.11e 802.11g 802.11n 802.20 Bluetooth MIMO UWB WiGig WiMAX ZigBee
Transportation and Lodging :: Transportation and Lodging Air Travel Aquatic Commuting Hotels Rails
Unclassified :: Unclassified
Vertical Markets :: Vertical Markets Academia Enterprise WLAN Switches Home Hot Spot Aggregators Hot Spot Advertising Road Warrior Roaming Libraries Location Medical Public Safety Residential Rural SOHO Small-Medium Sized Business Universities Utilities wISP
Voice :: Voice

Archives

November 2010 | October 2010 | September 2010 | August 2010 | July 2010 | June 2010 | May 2010 | April 2010 | March 2010 | February 2010 | January 2010 | December 2009 | November 2009 | October 2009 | September 2009 | August 2009 | July 2009 | June 2009 | May 2009 | April 2009 | March 2009 | February 2009 | January 2009 | December 2008 | November 2008 | October 2008 | September 2008 | August 2008 | July 2008 | June 2008 | May 2008 | April 2008 | March 2008 | February 2008 | January 2008 | December 2007 | November 2007 | October 2007 | September 2007 | August 2007 | July 2007 | June 2007 | May 2007 | April 2007 | March 2007 | February 2007 | January 2007 | December 2006 | November 2006 | October 2006 | September 2006 | August 2006 | July 2006 | June 2006 | May 2006 | April 2006 | March 2006 | February 2006 | January 2006 | December 2005 | November 2005 | October 2005 | September 2005 | August 2005 | July 2005 | June 2005 | May 2005 | April 2005 | March 2005 | February 2005 | January 2005 | December 2004 | November 2004 | October 2004 | September 2004 | August 2004 | July 2004 | June 2004 | May 2004 | April 2004 | March 2004 | February 2004 | January 2004 | December 2003 | November 2003 | October 2003 | September 2003 | August 2003 | July 2003 | June 2003 | May 2003 | April 2003 | March 2003 | February 2003 | January 2003 | December 2002 | November 2002 | October 2002 | September 2002 | August 2002 | July 2002 | June 2002 | May 2002 | April 2002 | March 2002 | February 2002 | January 2002 | December 2001 | November 2001 | October 2001 | September 2001 | August 2001 | July 2001 | June 2001 | May 2001 | April 2001 |

Recent Entries

In-Flight Wi-Fi and In-Flight Bombs
Can WPA Protect against Firesheep on Same Network?
Southwest Sets In-Flight Wi-Fi at $5
Eye-Fi Adds a View for Web Access
Firesheep Makes Sidejacking Easy
Wi-Fi Direct Certification Starts
Decaf on the Starbucks Digital Network
Google Did Snag Passwords
WiMax and LTE Not Technically 4G by ITU Standards
AT&T Wi-Fi Connections Keep High Growth with Free Service

Site Philosophy

This site operates as an independent editorial operation. Advertising, sponsorships, and other non-editorial materials represent the opinions and messages of their respective origins, and not of the site operator. Part of the FM Tech advertising network.

Copyright

Entire site and all contents except otherwise noted © Copyright 2001-2010 by Glenn Fleishman. Some images ©2006 Jupiterimages Corporation. All rights reserved. Please contact us for reprint rights. Linking is, of course, free and encouraged.

Powered by
Movable Type

« Confessions of a Dangerous Mind | Main | Vivato Broadcasts Its Plan »

February 14, 2003

Quality Configuration Time

Consider a donation to Wi-Fi Networking News via PayPal (link at right) or Amazon.com Honor System to help keep the news a-rolling!

The above could be a paid, sponsored link. Email for more information.

Subscribe to essays from this site via email. Email to subscribe, or sign up via your Yahoo account.

Configuring a/b and g (and sometimes why): I've had a chance to spend some quality time this morning with new products from Proxim (their Orinoco Gold 802.11a/b ComboCard) and Linksy (the draft 802.11g 54 Mbps WAP54G and WPC54G -- I'll be trying the WRT54G soon as well). My test equipment is a 1999-era Sony Vaio (Z505R) running Windows XP Professional. This is a good testbed because the machine itself can be a little funky, so if a card and driver work on it, they'll work anywhere.

Installing and using the Orinoco 802.11a/b card was a snap. I installed the drivers, placed the card in, and it automatically recognized the two infrastructure points with the same SSID in my office. I plugged in a Proxim 802.11a AP that I'd configured some months ago, and was able to quickly run a site survey, configure a connection to it, and swap over. The card can scan for both a and b networks without losing the current configuration, or you can use what it nicely calls a snoop mode which performs more extensive frequency checking. It's definitely an A-plus product, like all Proxim gear, and a refresh to support a/g would be most welcome for the maximum flexibility.

The Linksys configuration software also continues to improve over time. Their older configuration tools were a bear, requiring IP settings changing, reboots, and other problems. But their newer tools all rely on scanning a network for the specific device signatures and then allowing you to connect and configure. I installed the WAP54G because I already have a DHCP server running (on an Apple AirPort graphite model), and a WAP11 as well. They occupy channels 6 and 11.

I installed the WAP54G, set it up to run with a real IP address and a fresh password, and then had some interesting issue with the WPC54G. Initially, I set the WAP54G to act as another infrastructure point on the same network, but on channel 1. (The WAP11 and WAP54G are sitting on top of one another.) Even though the WPC54G card configured easily and connected to the main network, I could not force it to connect to the higher-speed G access point, even when selecting it from a list in the Site Survey window which shows all active access points, including their MAC addresses.

The solution, unfortunately, after testing several options, was to reset the WAP54G's SSID to a new name, leaving it on channel one. I was then able to set a configuration profile for the card that connected to the new network, and it all worked fine. My AirPort Card was also able to connect with no problems to the WPC54G, and I'll be testing an AirPort Extreme Base Station and 12-inch PowerBook G4 with AirPort Extreme shortly to see how they work in this environment.

My score (all ad hoc, seat of the pants) for the Linksys equipment is a 9 out of 10 for ease of configuration, but 5 out of 10 for simplicity of switching between b and g networks. You'd think the WPC54G would preferentially connect to the higher-speed AP (which also had the highest signal strength).

You can buy Linksys 54G equipment from Amazon.com: the PC Card (WPC54G, $70), the access point (WAP54G, $130), the wireless gateway (WRT54G, $130), and the PCI Card (WMP54G, $70). And did you know the price continues to plummet on the 802.11b side? See, for instance, the Linksys (BEFW11S4, their Ethernet/wireless gateway, which is now $80 with a mail-in rebate. The WAP11 is just $80 without any rebate, while the WPC11 PC Card is $50 with a rebate.

Interestingly, the WAP11 on channel 6 now seems unhappy: even after powercycling, it's not showing up in Macstumbler or the Linksys Site Survey. I wonder if it couldn't handle the competition from its faster brother? Very odd.

Update later in the afternoon: I realized that the WAP11 I was using was an original 1.4 firmware-series unit, but I had a trump card: a WAP11v2.2 in reserve that I'd configured but never deployed back when I was testing something I can't now recall. I powered it up, force reset it, logged in via a Web browser and set its password, WEP key, SSID, and channel (to 6), and voila: all three stations are operating in their nonoverlapping ranges. Oddly, the WAP11v2.2 is showing 100 percent signal strength to my Vaio (through a wall with an open door) while the WAP54G just next to it only shows a 50-odd percent strength. More testing with mobility (walkin' around) soon.

Other News

Slouching toward interoperability: another draft of 802.11g approved: Another 802.11g draft, version 6.1, was approved this week but as the article notes, there's yet another draft to come, and the difference between this week's approved draft and the previous one were significant enough that devices conforming to each wouldn't work with each other. The article says that the specificiation could be approved in June and published in July, but it's possible that it would be delayed until a September or even November meeting. It's happened before.

Laotians celebrate, even with computer not running: A truly lovely in depth story on the folks trying to bring computer and Internet service to the way, way out there in Laos. A power surge disrupted the efforts to launch, and some fires and guerrillas may continue to threaten people's lives and connectivity. But it's another tool to make sure these villagers are only as disconnected as they want to be. "The first thing I will do when the Jhai Computer comes is call my daughter in Ohio over the Internet," 78-year-old Pane Vongsenthong said, grinning hugely at the children who were jostling for turns on the bicycle. "I never get to call her now, and I miss her voice.

Air reports: Our correspondent writes from 30-odd-thousand feet in the air: Christopher Maines took advantage of the Boeing Connexion on the Lufthansa Frankfurt-Dulles run this morning (or his afternoon) to send this brief note: I'm at this moment somewhere over Northern Canada near Goose Bay and Labrador City on my way to Washington Dulles. The service is not as fast as I would have hoped, however, it's serviceable. I'm currently averaging between 80Kbps [kilobits per second] and 160Kbps (10KBps [kilobytes per second] and 20KBps). The service is extremely easy to set up; as long as you are set up to use DHCP rather than a hard-coded IP, the connection is automatic. Thanks for the report!