[TriLUG] Xmas wireless question

Michael Thompson thompson at easternrad.com
Tue Dec 30 09:07:14 EST 2003


On Mon, 2003-12-29 at 21:13, Jim wrote:
> My mother-in-law just called cackling like a happy hen. I saw in the
> BestBuy circular Sunday they had a 802.11b LinkSys 'kit' with both the
> router and a card for $79 after rebates.
> 
> What's scary is my father-in-law apparently purchased this AND set it
> up without my help. :)

Good for them!  Their LinkSys should be fine.  I've set up *many* home
and business wireless networks with many different brands (AT&T, Cisco,
LinkSys, Dell, NetGear, etc) and have found that they are all basically
the same, aside from some of the high power Cisco stuff.  The main
factor I've found is antenna placement and outside interference.  I
have a customer who has 4 laptops at home, but one of them is kicked
off the wireless LAN if the cordless phone rings.  Weird.  I've had
situations where I had to try a couple of different brands of WAPs
before finding one that worked well in the particular situation.  Every
time the "right" tool for the job is usually different.  

I currently use a LinkSys that was left over from a project I did (it
would not work in the customer's house, but a NetGear did) and it works
fine in my house with no quirks or weirdness.  If I were to make the
mistake of condemning a certain brand from my personal experience, I'd
say that Cisco (brand) WAPs are unreliable, I've seen the most failures
out of a couple of $1600 Cisco WAPS that I installed (and replaced 3X)
a few years ago. Of course, I'd be wrong, MY situation does not extend
to the entire world, which of course I'm the center of.

Sooo, if your parent's LinkSys does not work, I'd take it back and try
a NetGear, if that doesn't work, try a DLink, and if that doesn't work...

Just my venting plus $.02

--mike
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
URL: <http://www.trilug.org/pipermail/trilug/attachments/20031230/1ac01b15/attachment.pgp>


More information about the TriLUG mailing list