[TriLUG] [Slightly OT] Wi-Fi Consultant?

[Shane O'Donnell]

Total agreement here.  Wireless sucks--if you buy gear that sucks.

At Cisco, I don't have a wired connection (except for my phone,
ironically) and I've yet to have a problem.  Dock, undock, wander to
another building, come back and dock, go to a meeting with laptop in
hand, come back and dock -- wireless connectivity throughout.

Also, Cisco doesn't use Linksys gear, which was designed for, marketed
to, and priced for the consumer market.  My Linksys at home seems to
keep my Tivo (using a Linksys USB NIC) happily connected (as well as
my work and personal laptops).  My experiences with Netgear, however,
have been suboptimal at best.

Note that I'm using a Cisco-issued Windows XP on my work laptop and
not Linux.  Just stating the facts--not preferences.

Must get back to mentally designing a solar-powered video-enabled
SIP-compatible Bluetooth helmet for Greg,

Shane O.

On 5/26/05, Greg Brown <gwbrown1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> No, wireless does not suck.  I have several commercial wireless
> networks deployed with great success.  It just takes a bit more
> planning and perperation unboxing an AP/router and plugging it into
> the network.
> 
> Besides, most of the 'suckiness' from 802.11 comes from the hardware
> selected and deployed.  Here is a breakdown of my expirences with
> wireless hardware, and, again, this is just from my expirence:
> 
> linksys 802.11b - total junk
> dlink anything - absolute crap
> linksys 802.11g WAP54G access point - good in stock form for an access point
> linksys 802.11g WRT54G router - good in stock form, excellent with
> loaded with OpenWRT
> Orinoco AP-500 802.11b access point - by FAR the absolute best 11b
> access point ever created by any company at any time (until the Cisco
> AP1200 came out, and then it's still a close race).  A tad expensive.
> Cisco 1200 - have worked with the a/b/g units in large commercial
> enviornments.  Nice units.  Very expensive.  The absolute best
> all-around access points on the maket.  They support everything:
> radius, tacacs, crap I've never heard of, WEP, WPA, accounting, etc,
> etc, etc.  They also have two nice anntenna jacks for installing
> external antennas.  Plus a ton of other stuff I haven't even touched
> on.  The Aironet 1200 also has a web configuration interface where the
> Orinoco requires a windows program for configuration.  So, with that,
> the Aironet 1200 gets my nod as the best pure access point on the
> market for anything from large commerical to SMB.  For home use I'd
> still take the WRT54G running OpenWRT, though (the WRT54G/OpenWRT also
> gets my nod as the unit of choice for point-to-point links as the VPN
> modules seem quite attractive - I have yet to try them out, but I will
> shortly (i.e. this weekend)).  All THAT said, a cheap ebay AP-500 for
> home or office use would be much less expensive and equally as
> reliable as the cisco.
> 
> Cisco 1200 units run WindRiver vxworks OS - the same OS that runs
> satellites, etc.  Very reliable, even more so then OpenWRT.
> 
> So those are my thoughts.  Oh, if you are looking for commerical
> antennas for point-to-point or very high gain antennas look at
> http://www.fab-corp.com.
> 
> Greg
> 
> 
> On 5/26/05, Brian Henning <brian at strutmasters.com> wrote:
> > So wireless really does suck and it's not just me doing something wrong
> > that makes my "Signal Strength: Excellent" connection drop, and not come
> > back for 5 minutes?
> >
> > ~B
> >
> > Kevin Otte wrote:
> > > Jim Ray wrote:
> > >
> > >>i gave away my wireless stuff and use copper.  with all the spurious
> > >>electromagnetic radiation in this neighborhood, i gave up on reliable
> > >>email via wireless.
> > >
> > >
> > > Mr. Ray,
> > >
> > > I believe everyone on this list is now intimately familiar with your
> > > unique problems in deploying wireless.  I cannot speak for others, but I
> > > have maintained successful wireless deployments at two employers and at
> > > my home.  Unless you can offer constructive assistance in solving the
> > > problem being inquired about, may I suggest that you need not remind us
> > > for the umpteenth time that "wireless sucks"?
> > >
> > > -- Kevin
> > >
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-- 
Shane O.
========
Shane O'Donnell
shaneodonnell at gmail.com
(h) 919.847.4687
(m) 919.395.7367
(f) 817.796.2086
================