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Cheap Wireless 802.11b Bridging

Posted by Hemos on from the making-them-work-together dept.

eggboard writes "You can bridge two wired networks using two cheap Linksys 802.11b access points. This isn't exactly new, but the article I wrote, which just went up on Friday, describes in excruciating detail how to configure the units. The big news is really price: the WAP11 described is about $185 with a manfacturer's rebate. Using higher-gain antennas than the ones shipped with the WAP11 and/or tuning line-of-sight access, you've either figured out how to hook up a neighborhood of separate wired networks, or how to link multiple offices cheaply."

4 of 122 comments (clear)

  1. Legal issues by mwillems · · Score: 4, Informative

    Careful though.

    a) By modifying equipment you may be breaking FCC rules (USA) or your local rules.

    Additionally, in the UK, 802.11b is NOT apprived for commercial use. I spoke at length with the UK government Radio Agency last week to establish this (my company use 802.11b to connect remote advertising screens, but not in the UK where this is forbidden.)

    Michael

    --

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    BDOS ERR ON A:>
  2. Broken... by meisenst · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Unfortunately, like other 802.11b solutions, these use WEP, which is inherently broken... if I were linking my business' two campuses, I wouldn't really want Joe, Bob and Mary (who all happen to have line of sight) sniffing all of my network traffic with their perfectly simple store-bought solutions. :-)

    meisenst

    --
    Green's Law of Debate: Anything is possible if you don't know what you're talking about.
  3. $199 Cheap? Make it yourself. by steevo.com · · Score: 4, Informative

    Why not turn bridging on in the kernel and bridge to an internally connected 802.11b card.

    I used to work for (company unnamed, but you have heard of them) a place that developed a stand-alone product where the "bridged mode" is done exactly this way. (It was still in development when I left, and I don't believe it is yet on the market.) Bridging performance was about the same as other 802.11b access point devices.

    While the platform was a bit differant (StongARM and mini-PCI cards) there is no reason you couldn't do the same with a P166 sitting in the closet, a card bus controller and a cheap 802.11 card.

  4. Mobil Ad-Hoc NETworks: Re:next, forward packets by voop · · Score: 3, Informative


    You're right - and it exists. Routing protocols that would make such things work exists for so-called MANETS (Mobile Ad-hoc NETworks), being developed by the IETF.


    Working in this area myself, I'd like to point to
    http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/manet-charter. ht ml, which is the IETF-working group dealing with MANET's.


    Now, for the shameless plug: A link to the OLSR routing protocol for MANET's, which is showing promising results. Implementations (downloadable, with sourcecode etc. of the routing deamon) are available (drop voop@cs.auc.dk an email if interrested in the code - the www-server is currently not responding).

    --
    -- "Life is a bitch - and she hates me..."