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54 Mbps/100 Mbps Wireless LAN
carbon60 writes: "Proxim seems to have very quietly released 802.11a based products. 54 Mbps in standard mode and 100 Mbps in "2X" mode. The main website lists the products." They're a little more expensive, and I dunno about Linux drivers, but still, that's some fast wireless action.
All of 20 feet is going to be real useful!
Also, the 2x mode is proprietary so you won't be able to mix with other vendors cards.
But it's a good start.
Acording to this article on 80211 planet You should be able to get 3x the speed at the same distance you get from an 802.11b card.
In such a short time, we've gone from the days where 80m long radio waves were considered "shortwave" and anything over 100 Mhz was "unusable" to our new modern dreams of Multi Ghz signals and waves getting so short that we are tempted to measure them in millimeters. Lo! What brave new world is this?
The great thing about really, really tiny waves is the antenna size. While nobody would want to venture the project of making a 24dbi parabolic dish for use with AM radio signals at 500kHz, $80 will get one to your doorstep ready for 2.4Ghz. Now that we are in the upper 5Ghz range, it will finally be feasible to build a mega-super dish where the actual radiated power is in the mega-super-ka-jigga-trilla-watt range. Maybe we could get rid of that whole line of sight problem with Moonbounce communications. Of course the ping time would be seriously worse than the average satellite... The "big sattelite" is just a little outside of geosync orbit..
I apparently forgot that sig != uptime...
I was about to ask 'Whut in da heck is NetStumbler' but instead I got off my butt and
found out for myself:
Network administrators deploying an 802.11b wireless network need site survey tools to help plan locations for access points. Once installed, the access points need to be checked periodically to ensure they are providing adequate coverage.
Some wireless network cards provide reasonable survey tools, but the freeware Network Stumbler is far superior to most. The program captures signal strength and signal-to-noise statistics, but perhaps more important, it helps network administrators identify and locate rogue access points--those that employees may have installed without central IT's permission--as well as determine whether or not WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy) is being used, to help prevent potential security breaches.
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
they have 8 channels. and I belive require 5 channels of seperation also.
This is not a product for the home LAN - the range is far too limited. You'd require some kind of repeater in every room.
Fortunately, the main use for wireless in home LANs is to share Internet access. Since mine is capped at 1.5 Mbps, it doesn't matter that 802.11b only runs at roughly twice that. (I know it's rated at 11 Mbps, but true throughput is far less.)
Digital video over wireless will just have to wait.
Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball...
802.11a was set as a standard, but, until now, no company has made it economical enough to produce the hardware. I don't think it will "catch on" until there's at least one more company making these cards, and driving down the price a bit.
Does it work with NetStumbler?
Yes. 801.11b and 802.11a are physical layer protocols. Toms hardware has more details, but basically they operate in different frequency bands but once you get to link layer the differences begin to dissolve. by the time you get to network layer, it's the same protocol. which means it has all the same security holes outlined by the recent paper on the subject and exploitable by airsnort.
So yes, you can use NetStumbler to steal more bandwidth now. Whether or not someone will figure out how to solve the solved problem of mutual authentication for the wireless community remains to be seen.
I've been using a proxim wireless lan for quite some time albiet the 1.5mbps. I've been reasonably happy with the range and okay with the performance (who cares if you get >1.5 if you're just sharing cable internet). However, I must say the driver support is a weakness. The drivers are maintained by a third party whose site is not always up. Apparantly the guy had to pay for the privilege. (http://www.komacke.com/distribution.html). So while I'm happy with it for the cost and what it does (especially considering its > 2 years old), I think I'll be looking for more standard stuff when I upgrade.
As for range on this: I can go upstairs but it only works on half of the upstairs. I can generally travel downstairs anywhere I want. The laptop version has a shorter range unless you replace the silly nub antenna.
I still thing wireless has a bit of a ways to go (especially the cheap stuff) mostly in the area of range and price before it replaces good ol wire.
If everyone was obsessive about checking /. in the morning, things might have been different.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
I believe Enterasys Networks (formerly Cabletron Systems) RoamAbout R2 Wireless was the first wireless access platform that offered 54 Megabits per second (Mbps) performance based on the 802.11a standard (w/advanced Layer 3-4 capabilities)
http://www.enterasys.com/roamabout/
And yes support for linux is there...
I've seen demo's with a Compaq IPAQ running Linux using these wireless cards
While
Tim
Actually the specs for 802.11a and 802.11b where approved at the exact same time.
Not sure why 11b got popular and 11a didn't.
There were products in both the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz space back long before the 802.11? existed. Maybe
the IEEE folks thought 5 GHz was going to take off first, and they just got it wrong. Or more likely, the 5 GHz working group got started before the 11 MB/S 2.4 GHz group.
Kevin
"They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety"-B.Franklin
Proxim's site says the 8 channels don't overlap, meaning you should be able to get ~400 Mbps of total capacity.
Perhaps the Proxim press release is a bit unclear on the range issue. The 802.11a products can step down to several lower speeds to tradeoff range versus bandwidth. The result is comparable range to 802.11b, but higher bandwidth.
There's a good paper discussing this issue in technical detail here.
(The Proxim product, as mentioned in the press release, is based on the Atheros chipset).
Second, 802.11a has more channels available than 802.11b. That means that there's less chance that nearby networks (at your neighbor's house, for example) will interfere with your network (when nearby networks use the same channel, each sees reduced bandwidth).
No. They APs and PC Cards only broadcast in the 5Ghz range. You can see the data sheet here .