[TriLUG] wifi woes

[Jim Ray]

now, there's a great way to eliminate 802.11b, save on power and have no 
wireless interference: grab a couple of soup cans with a tight string 
between 'em, and rattle your jaws all day.

just for the record, the particular wireless link my company installed 
between those two manufacturing plants has been in operation for nearly 
3 years with merely one reboot after a bad electrical storm and has 
saved my customer thousands of dollars in sunk cost cabling.  they are, 
however, building a new and larger plant.

customers are great.  growing customers are greater.

Greg Brown wrote:

>Oh Jim, really.  You are not comparing apples to oranges here, in fact I'm
>not even sure what you are doing.  Your FUD regarding 802.11 technology is
>really getting old.  I've covered square miles with the stuff.  It works
>great, when properly designed, deployed, etc, etc.
>
>Is a 802.11 link between two buildings slower then a wired or fiber link?
>Yeah.  Even if you are running 10 meg Ethernet or 4 meg token ring over your
>wire or fiber.  That is not news.  Deploying 802.11 where it shouldn't be
>leads to unhappy customers and users.  Deploying 802.11 where it is a good
>idea, in homes, where 100 megs of bandwidth is not needed on a regular basis
>for normal use the technology works great.
>
>Now, on to the solution I read about at the end of this e-mail.  If you are
>running a 802.11 with a WRT54GL I'd suggest going straight to OpenWRT.
>Why?  You get the ability to adjust power settings down a bit (yes, I said
>that) so you can add inexpensive amplification to you link if that is a
>requirement.
>
>Honestly that hold 802.11b (not "B") apple base station wasn't known for
>good power to noise ratios or reliable signal patters.  You are better off
>with anything else.  I'm partial to the Asus 500g Deluxe.  More expensive
>then a WRT54GL, but not much.  But since you already have the hardware that
>is a moot point.
>
>Greg
>