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Linksys WET11: Bridge 30 Devices To Any Wi-Fi Network
eggboard writes "The Linksys WET11 lets you bridge a wired network with up to 30 devices to any wireless access point that uses Wi-Fi. The utility is enormous: you could build a pseudo-mesh network by pairing cheap Wi-Fi APs with this cheap ($129) Wi-Fi bridge. Before this, the only generic Wi-Fi bridge was proprietary: you'd buy a bridge from Alvarion that paired with one of their hubs, and spend several hundred each. Even the dual-WAP11 bridge approach of last year was wonky and required extra gear (although it can handle more devices than 30 since it's a protocol bridge, not a MAC bridge). I review the WET at O'Reilly's wireless developer's site."
You were not the first.
There was another frost piss.
It was before you.
p|-|33R my haiku sk1LLz
I hang out at the WISP message board on broadbandreports.com ( http://www.dslreports.com/forum/dslalt ) and it seems that many WISPs are using these to connect customers to their wireless network. The WET11's antenna is detachable, so you can use an external one. It can also be configured to use POE (power over ethernet) by changing two jumpers.
0 109~roo t=dslalt~mode=flat
r oo t=dslalt~mode=flat~start=0
There have been some cool mods like:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,422
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,4123612~
There is lots of traffic that doesn't really belong on wireless networks. Isn't the transfer rate bad enough without unneeded traffic clogging up the airwaves? Also, how secure is this system, will this make networks easier to break in to?
why is this on the front page of slashdot? Yea its a useful consumer product but the review is lacking and the device is entry-level. It would be a much more interesting read if someone setup a linux (or any other OS) box with a wifi card in it and a wired nic that feeds a hub/switch and NAT'd a bridge. You could actually use the Linux box for some professional applications since Netfilter is now being used.
wonky Pronunciation Key (wngk)
adj. Chiefly British wonkier, wonkiest
Shaky; feeble.
Wrong; awry.
I had to look it up myself, but there you go. It really IS a word...
-- -- Warning. Do not stare directly at the sun.
This is a good thing... we should be building bridges, not burning them.
There have been some cool mods like:
r oo t=dslalt~mode=flatu m/remark,4123612~roo t=dslalt~mode=flat~start=0
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,4220109~
http://www.dslreports.com/for
I can't make out that tiny chip on the board. But the peltier circuit cooler seems like overkill. If that puppy turns out not to be a major heat source I'd try just putting the bare module in a NEMA enclosure by clamping the PCIA board to the inside of the enclosure gooped with a layer of heatsink compound. For any environment where the card would work in a laptop (like maybe anywhere but a desert, Antarctica, or inside a diesel-electric locomotive) this stunt should work in a NEMA.
If dissipation on that chip is a problem I'd still try it but with a heatsink on that chip or a block of aluminum and two layers of heatsink compound between it and the enclosure.
Now if there's something dissapative UNDER the card it's another matter. But in that case it would probably have trouble on your desk inside that plastic box.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
[from Australian slang] Yet another approximate synonym for broken. Specifically connotes a malfunction that produces behavior seen as crazy, humorous, or amusingly perverse. "That was the day the printer's font logic went wonky and everybody's listings came out in Tengwar." Also in `wonked out'. See funky, demented, bozotic.
By Walt Mossberg's substitute Nick Wingfield in his
Personal Technology column
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Are these tough enough to put in an unventilated metal box on the side or roof of a building? Even on a cloudy day the temp inside my car is over 100 degrees F. Even though they are cheap, it would get pricy replacing them every month.
I have been looking for a WiFi bridge to help a friend get cablemodem access: the cable company will not lay the cable to his house (cost > $1K), and it is about 300' from the road. One possibility I am considering is to use a pair of WiFi APs to bridge the gap. But they need to be rugged, to withstand temperatures from -30F to +100F, and rain/snow. None of the cheapo units comes in a weatherproof enclosure. Anyone know of any? I've looked around. Of course, the cost can't be more than $200 or so (each); the .com days are gone. :-(
I know it's possible to steal (or borrow :) bandwidth from a wireless network, but is it possible to hack an otherwise closed network if the network is wireless? For instance, the CIA's network has no outside lines, making it unhackable unless you get in on an authorized terminal. Does that change if you used a wireless network? Could you hack the signal for information, not just bandwidth?
Can I bum a sig?
Great, 30+ devices sharing a cable/DSL connection. I can't wait to get the clockspeeds on that.
It's a great little unit. Been playing around with it for about a month. It can use an external antenna (RP-SMA connector) also. It's also 70mW, which helps out on the transmissions.
r oo t=dslalt~mode=flat
r oo t=dslalt~mode=flat
There are a few current threads about the WET-11 for Wireless ISPs here:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,4123612~
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,3915738~
Dirk
Motorola do a system called Canopy which is designed as a last mile solver. It's expensive, but is already fully ruggedised for outdoor use.
Deleted
I was one of the early customers for the Linksys WET11. My hope at the time I bought it was to be able to hook it up to my Xbox game console and use it to play Xbox games online while running Gamespy or or XBConnect on my primary PC, and therefore not have to run any unsightly ethernet from my entertainment center into my computer room (I rent an apartment, and the landlord would appreciate me returning it eventually without too many extra holes).
1 3 - this is the forum for XBC. Look for anything in there labelled WET11.
Obviously, nothing is ever that simple. I discovered that the WET11 performs some wonky MAC addressing translations when forwarding packets. Seeing as Xbox System Link games depend entirely on ethernet addressing schemes, the WET11 proved to be useless for this - despite Linksys advertising it as a solution for Xbox gaming.
Correct me if I'm wrong - something labelled as a "Network Bridge" should pass packets from one side of the bridge to the other unaltered, and simply keep a table of what addresses are on what side so as to pass packets when necessary between two broadcast segments. WET11 converts all MAC addresses on its "wired" network into it's own address. The reverse is different - it'll reassemble incoming wireless packets based on what I guess was their original IP source, and place the MAC address it replaced with its own back in the packet. Go figure why they go through all the trouble. Of course this behavior is undocumented, so this took several hours of packet sniffing (so blame me, I don't deal with Layer 2 issues every day).
Now, Xbox Live is expected to work at the IP level, but that is'nt out until December. Existing System Link game like Halo only work on a local broadcast segment, using ethernet for addressing while sending out some horribly mangled non-RFC compliant ethernet packets that look like UDP but aren't.
The ethernet mangling caused problems with Gamespy and XBConnect, but I was able to get in touch with the developer for XBConnect and over a nice weekend hacking session we were able to cobble together support for the WET11 in his program - essentially it now has the option to look for the MAC address of the WET11, and retranslate that to that of an Xbox. The funny bit is on the return path from a remote Xbox, it needs to again translate the address of the local Xbox back to a WET11 so your average Access Point knows who to retransmit your Xbox packets to. Every Xbox game needs to go through four translations: two on the WET11 and two on XBC.
http://www.xbconnect.com
http://www.apoxx.org/community/viewforum.php?f=
-Jack Ash
I got one of the first of these available, and had a terrible time with it just losing connection to my Netgear access point once a day. Linksys support, both phone and email, seem to be outsourced to some Pacific Rim country where they only know how to read from scripts and have no actual knowledge of the product ('What ISP are you using?' "What does that have to do with my internal network??") Their proposed solutions involved getting rid of encryption and running at 1 mbit (!). Finally, after mentioning never buying Linksys again, they apparently forwarded my concern to someone with a clue, and gave me settings to change on my access point (long preamble vs short) to improve performance, and it hasn't needed a power reset in over a month now.
Who is this Steven King?
I hope you view anonymous replies..
We've had a pair of Linksys WAP11 access points mounted in waterproof plastic electrical enclosures on top of our chiller towers at work for about 18 months. These chiller towers release slightly acidic moisture that coats everything. I the winter they don't run much so the access points are exposed to everything a michigan winter can dish out.
Open the phone book, find a local industrial electrical equipment supplier and pay them a visit. I think we paid around $30 ea for an approx 12x12x8" ABS enclosure with a thick rubber seal and stainless steel screws to hold the hinged door shut.
I used homebrew power over cat5 to simplify wiring. Make sure to run all wiring out of the bottom of the box and use a product called marine goop to seal it. Never had a moisture or connectivity problem the whole time. We are using 24dBi grid antennas to span a 3/4 mile gap.
Another example of people putting out products before fixing what they have. Why not clean up the whole Wi-Fi security mess before releasing these products? Then we all would not have to un-do the rubberband ball to get to the core....It would also boost sales as more people would buy something that is more secure...Or maybe thats the plan...to change everything next year...and make everyone buy new devices.....
Rob Timko
wwww.robtimko.com
Can you point me toward a source for those antennas? (Antenni? doh)
To ensure perfect aim, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target
CDW
:) I've seen them for around $100-120 from the shady gotta call them up shops.
:)
has them, finding them cheaper is your job
This site has a picture and you can order them, too. they will also put on a special connector so you can actually connect to your access point. By default the antenna comes with a big N type connector that likely won't connect to your access point. I'd call up the second place, tell them what you are doing and have them make the proper cable you need, it'll save a LOT of time
I, too, wonder just how compatible the WET11 will be, and whether it is actually a good low-cost CPE.
8 ~roo t=dslalt~mode=flat
(I haven't played with a WET11 yet. I realize WET11 and WAP11 v1.1, 2.x are different products by different companies. I realize your O'Reilly review didn't suggest it would be good CPE, but others are suggesting that.)
I'd hoped you would compare and contrast with the WAP11 "access point client" mode. I think APC mode showed that handling multiple MACs from a single end-point would seem to be a function of the AP, not the remote equipment. For example, using WAP11 APC mode with a Cisco AP-352 would let you ping the WAP11, but nothing behind. I cloned the MAC with a Linksys BEFSR41 NAT router/fw, and presto, it would pass all traffic. Then I tried connecting a second WAP11/BEF pair to that Cisco AP, and the Cisco would reboot every time the second one associated! Cisco really doesn't want you to bridge this way. It seems deliberate, too - earlier Cisco/Aironet bridges don't do this. Do the WET11 docs explain exactly what it's doing?
Someone on a dslforum thread on WET11 at
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,391573
said it only passes a single MAC to the remote network. Isn't that bending the definition of "bridge"? If true, won't this cause trouble in some environments?
I'm so tired of companies bending definitions, stretching standards, and inventing terminology, followed by weeks and months of the user community discovering these errors and miscommunications through failure and tech support calls, when a few simple paragraphs in the docs in the most precise 7-layer and networking terminology would make it clear what a product does and doesn't do.
With the WET11, it does seem like companies are evolving towards what I agree would be a better CPE solution: something like a WET, but why not with an integrated NAT / firewall like the $80 Linksys boxes?
Better yet, combo with the VPN abilities of the BEFVP41 and BEFSX41. Hardware VPN encryption as needed, forget WEP, NAT/fw when you need it.
I've been using these at my WISP and it's working great so far: customers get VPN between remote sites (at full wireless speed when they stay on my network) plus NAT to protect their local network when on the Internet, and administratively, the VP41 and SX41 can use syslogd for logging.
Curator of the Jefferson Computer Museum http://www.threedee.com/jcm
Instead of buying two dedicated pieces of equipment (albeit they're only about $99 each), you need to buy just a single $129 device.
Ok, so once I have my single $129 WET11, what wireless device will it be connecting to? Wouldn't I still need to buy a $99 access point? And if I'm buying a $99 access point already, why wouldn't I just buy another one that can do more than bridge and save myself $30?
This would be perfect with the Big microwave tower bunkers mentioned last night. If there was one of these in microwave towers across the country we could build our own national wireless network.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Ok, the price is pretty cheap. No argument from me there. But, I still can't see the "technical greatness" of this device. Symbol, Cisco and probably Lucent have always had bridges capable of both bridging and AP mode at the same time.
Also, they can all be configured to talk with each other so, I don't understand the proprietary reference. Sure, Symbol et al don't speak Cisco's enhanced WEP but, the Cisco can be configured to use standard WEP so it will speak with the others.
So, besides cost, whats so special about this device? Something else that I am missing is the power output of the Linksys bridge. What is it? Historically, the cheaper Linksys Wi-Fi products have had a lower power output that the others. Is this also true here or does this latest Linksys bridge put out the full 100 milliwatts, as the others do?
It posted this yesterday, who care.
We've actually carried that for a little while now at work... the NEW linksys device is the:
WAP51AB - Wireless Dual Band Access Point.
It's an access point that works on both 802.11b and 802.11a, so you can run both wireless setups at the same time off of one peice of equipment! Now that's sweet!
My Wet11 works beautifully with my 3Com Audrey webpad - I can browse the web using this totally proprietary machine without having to stretch a wire from my kitchen counter, where it's nice to have web access, to my bedroom where my cable jack is.
I think the device is mainly intended to wirelessly connect devices on which it's not possible to load and configure 802.11 drivers - printers, scanners, webpads, etc.
The price difference is not great compared to the latest routers from linksys, which feature bridging, but it's much smaller. I was thinking it would be neat to velcro it to the back of whatever you're using it with.
Perhaps because it's early in the morning....
but how is bridging a wired to wireless network some kind of 'new' thing?
isn't this what an access point usually does?
I know it's what my linksys AP does...
Wouldn't this work equally well in linux or *BSD if you turn on bridging between, say, eth0 and wlan0?
If you are using WAP11 APs already it is actually cheaper to buy another WAP11 and put it in "client access mode". That's what I did. The WET11s were going for $130 *IF* you could find one, but the WAP11s were going for $105 shipped from buy.com.
I just bought another WAP11 and put it behind my home theater, set up bridging mode, and plugged in a hub. Works great with my Rio Receiver, XBox, PS2, etc.... So, it was cheaper and can be used as a full AP later if needed.
I read the articlet his time, and I'm STILL confused.
How is this different than the myriad of AP's out there?
Even my little linksys (no, I don't mean the NAT features).... if I use the builtin switch, and some wireless devices, I end up with one layer 2 network that works just fine.. what am I missing here?
This is actually a product I was looking for years ago. I only heard about it's release last week though. It would have been useful to me before last weekend but I found a cheaper solution to do pretty much the same thing.
I moved into a new place a couple of weeks ago. At my old house, my LAN was half wired and half wireless. I had wired certain rooms before 802.11b was around but then after it appeared, I stopped running new cables when I would move a PC into another room or add a PC to my LAN.
Now that I've moved, I no longer have a cable running to my old Blue & White G3 or my old beat up linux box. Adding 802.11b network cards to an old mac and an old non-USB pentium pro proved to be a little more expensive and complicated than I had expected. So I went looking for a WET 11 with no luck last weekend. Apparently retail shops haven't had a chance to get them stocked yet.
What I did end up with was a returned Belkin access point. I only ran me $70 and I was able to set up my Linksys WAP11 as a bridge. I'm having a few problems getting encryption to work right now but otherwise it works great. For now I've locked stuff down by MAC address which is probably just as good considering how easy WEP is to break.
OKay.
Now I get it.
Beneath all the hype... they are pushing this as a way to connect devices that can't normally take wireless cards.
So it's not necessarily even a bridge. It just does some funky layer-2 stuff and the net effect is that it is like your normally wired device has a wireless card.
You could do this with access points, it's just cheaper.
So really the only new thing here is that it's cheap and tiny.
I've been using the WET11 for a couple weeks now and it's working much better. I recently moved into an apartment that has wireless ISP. I contacted Linksys before this product came out and they told me to purchase thier BEFW11S4. But oncei received it it didn't work. I called them back and they said that "No, that won't work for what you need." And even though I purchased it from them, they won't give me my money back..
But anyways, this product is working GREAT for me. I like linksys in general. But good luck getting ahold of a live person when you call!
"Shut up about my driving. You're still alive."
Whats the difference between this and hooking up an access point for point to point or point to multipoint?
- what is the definition of simultanagnosia?! I've been meaning to look it up!
So I'm working on a new police technology vehicle in which I was going to setup a wired/wireless network throughout the car. The laptop would have a wired connection to the trunk into a wired/wireless router. If I want to be able to hit my wireless network in the apartment when I get near the apartment would I need 2 of these bridges? 1 to sit in the apartment on the wireless broadband router and one plugged into the router in the trunk?
These are two great questions.
First, which kind of wireless networks doesn't it belong on? It might be a bad addition to certain topologies that lack redundancy or are already crowded or rely on community cooperation. But it's a great addition to many kinds of networks in which you're looking to span or create a loose, fake mesh (it doesn't have mesh routing protocols, but i wouldn't be surprised to see hacks when mesh routing becomes an open-source reality).
Second, security is definitely an issue because you're beaming a ton of network traffic over the link. But because it's a client association session, someone can't just tune into your WET11 and monitor traffic; they have to get access to the AP that it's connecting to.
Freelance tech journalist for the Economist, MIT Technology Review, Macworld, and others
This article was full of more 'you coulds' and not ANY 'I dids'. Had he ever thought that the 'costly' versions of access points have actual stress tests ran on them in bridging mode, that there are limits on how many nodes for a reason (actual processing power inside the access points). All any access point does is acts as a bridge. It is a wireless bridge between wired and wireless devices. Anyone who has access points has them wired into a switch to begin with if they have muliple devices. Ad-hoc mode was designed for connecting two actual clients together, never for connecting access points together. Just looking at the configuration screen and seeing that you can only change the channel when in ad-hoc mode made me feel like they had no clue what the hell they were doing. This product is not an AP. APs work with IPX, Netbeui, IP, etc.. already, what the hell is this protocol independence crap he is saying they don't do. Get a clue, go buy a real access point (Symbol, Cisco, Lucent) or even better just go to their sites and RTFM before posting a less-than-Tech TV worthy 'review' and submitting yourself to slashdot.
Tommorrow on slashdot! Wireless Bridge powered by Tesla Coil made from Legos reviewed by a sourceforge AI rolling broom!
I run a WISP that covers four counties. I've seen the spectrum analyzer output on the '100mw hack' for the WAP11 - 31mw in channel, 69mw of crap spattered all over 2300MHz - 2550MHz. I don't doubt the WET11 will be the same high quality product
Use it for what its meant to do and don't try to run it outdoors any further than across a parking lot.
I am very easy to get along with, but I don't have time to waste being nice to people who are being stupid. -Theo
Device > Wire > Hub/Switch > Wire > AP > 'air' > AP > Wire > Hub/Switch > Wire > Device. This is how AP's work as bridges,and no, I will assure you you cannot hook up 30 of these. Maybe I am just biased having worked at Symbol in their lab testing these, before the flood of cheap, apparently can't do two things at once wireless devices came out. You get what you pay for. ftp://symstore.longisland.com/symstore/pdf/downloa ds/Spec24hr_ap4111.pdf Read up on WLAP mode, Wireless, Repeater and Ethernet Bridge.
when mesh routing becomes an open-source reality
There are a number of open source mesh protocol's
Mobile Mesh is one
someone can't just tune into your WET11 and monitor traffic
Wrong. Using any number of free tool's from the net you can sniff 11b with little to no trouble. WEP is crackable in a few days. There are patch's but not many people even turn on WEP so it still a moot point. 11b is insecure: Period.
Only running some kind of tunnel(VPN/SSH/Ect) is your data secure. People should assume that in the first place even on wired connection's.
DS systems are, by nature, made to be open and easily accesed. FH is no hackable like DS is. You have to know the exact hop sequence, If you dont then forget about it. Not that it can't be done, just it hasn't been done.
Do not forget that things like AP spoofing and AP tunneling are possible too.
Crackers`n`Soup
This may be obvious to some people, but I've had a whole pot of coffee this morning, and my brain is running past concepts too fast to actually figure anything out.
Is this doing anything special with the access point to make this work? I'm in the process of reconfiguring my wireless network at home because I have a need now to have wireless access to my internal network from a bridged lan, instead of the current setup which has the hub in a DMZ.
Right now its basically Linksys firewall/gateway onto a DMZ network, through a locked down linux box to the internal network, so I use SSH to get to internal boxes, and a couple services are accessed via SSL links using port forwarding. The wireless hub is in that network, so I have to SSH to internal boxes, which is fine because I don't use the wireless for anything but surfing 99% of the time.
In my new house, however, I need to bridge two different seperated internal networks, because its turned out to be a huge mess to try to run ethernet cables between my second floor office and the devices on the first floor that don't support wireless (Tivo, WebPlayers, Rio Players, etc). My plan had been to use FreeSWAN to run an IPSEC VLAN between the two subnets, so all the boxes in the office sit behind a wireless gateway, connected through the firewall thats plugged into the access point downstairs, to get access to the internal network on the first floor.
So my question, related to this article, is this... Would a box like this be easier to use, or would it be better to just find a linux-compatible PCI wireless card and pop it in whatever box is running the IPSEC tunnels upstairs? Has anyone seen any write ups of building a network with this sort of topology? (I'm wondering about any gotchas I'm not thinking of right now...)
This would be a lot easier if the joists between floors in my condo weren't two sandwiched 2x12's, preventing any possibility of running wires between floors through the walls...
This thing runs linux. So it must be better.
Linux based Access Point
It can be difficult to find websites pertaining to your local area sometimes. Just letting everything know about http://www.azwardriving.com , if you're local to Arizona you might be interested.
But where are you sniffing? You can't associate with the WET11 and sit actively on the network. You could sniff traffic going by, but the WET11 is likely to be used in short-range point-to-point installations with some sort of antenna unless it's entirely within someone's home.
I don't buy "WEP is crackable in a few days." That's a canard. It's absolutely crackable with sufficient data samples. From my reading and talking with security folks, home networks don't generate the amount of traffic necessary over short periods of time, like days, and corporate IT managers should be boiled alive if they're letting non-encrypted data pass over wireless links.
So we agree!
Freelance tech journalist for the Economist, MIT Technology Review, Macworld, and others
I used to work at a PDA dev shop that used 802.11a, and when people complain on various forums about the WAPs, the underlying problem isn't the WAP, it's the cards in your laptop/computer. Get ones based on the Orinoco, they may cost slightly more, but their range, performance, and speed were far superior to the, for example, Linksys PCMCIA cards.
Hey, I'm just your average shit and piss factory.
i got one of these, and the problem i had was getting the WEP to work on it. i have it bridged to a linksys wap 11, but could not get security to work on it.. so i have an unsecure wireless ap now... good thing i live in Nowhere.
otherwise, it works well with my replayTV and PS2
Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
Alvarion (formerly BreezeCom) equipment: in particular their BreezeNet/BreezeAccess bridge units mentioned in the article are not proprietary devices. They are 802.11 FHSS devices, and as such they do not operate with 802.11b DSSS devices. Granted, they have extra non-standards-compliant features on them such as RADIUS authentication, but these will simply be disabled if they are talking to a non-alvarion AP.
Frequency Hopping is still a very good way to go onto unlicensed 2.4GHz bands for the last mile from carrier-grade ISP's and the business WAN's that do not want to worry as much about interference from consumer-grade DSSS equipment.
Honestly, have none of you out there actually tried (ie failed) to DEPLOY any 802.11b for WAN in a densley packed downtown area? I mean, you can't even do it. 3 non-overlapping channels makes it hard enough to deploy it for seamless roaming in a two story building! You can get about 26 concurrent cells in FHSS without significant problems.
This thing has been getting mentioned in the various video game magazines for months now. And if you read the Linksys page for this product you'll see what market it's intended for.
Say you've got broadband in your den and your Playstation 2 (with Network Adapter) is in the living room. Your PS2 obviously can't accept or configure a traditional wireless card. That's where the WET11 comes in. I bet these little suckers will sell like hotcakes once "consumer device" owners learn about them. They came along at the right time too, with SOCOM and the PS2 NA being released. The price isn't too bad either.
I'm using one with my PS2 myself, along with a BEFW11S4 ver 2 router.
I'm surprised no one's compared these products. The DWL-900P+ does the same thing as the WET11, but includes 256-bit WEP and it uses the new TI 802.11b chip that can do 22 Mbps. It's only $115, too (retail).
I just bought two of them so that I could share the DSL line with my upstairs neighbor. (I hadn't heard about the WET11 when I bought the D-Links.)
FYI.
.11a.
We recently replaced the wireless nics in our Linux-Linux WAN bridge boxes. We had Zoomair 4105s in PCI bridge cards (_plx) and replaced them with Linksys WMP11 pci cards.
One thing that made this easy was that the WMP11s use the same external antenna connector (RSMA) as the Zoomair cards, so we didn't have to replace our cables or the Zoomair 13db patch antennae on the roofs.
In my pre-sales email with Linksys, I specifically asked for confirmation that this was the connector used (it was), and was told that connecting any antenna other than that supplied with the unit would violate the warranty.
The original article advocates using external antennae, as do several of the comments here. Keep in mind that if you do so, you must not admit to Linksys that you did such a thing!
Of course, Zoomair said that their warranty would be violated by using any cable other than theirs ($60 US per 3 meter section ouch!)...
MORE FYI.
In another location, we use a Linksys DI-804v as an AP/NAT/FW/VPN. It's connected to a DSL circuit and it supports IPSEC PSK. This box is great for setting up a VPN subnet at a remote office, as it connects perfectly to FreeS/WAN running on the firewall at the main office. Very handy indeed. VPN traffic is routed to the corp firewall, and regular traffic is NATed to the DSL's upstream gw seamlessly.
The only drawback to this setup is that the link from the workstations (Windows with the older Zoomair cards mentioned above) to the AP is only WEP, but since the building sits in the middle of 3.5 acres and we were unable to pickup signal from the AP (using the AP's supplied dipole antennae) from outside the fence, we determined that WEP would be acceptable in this location.
In point of fact, we couldn't pick up the signal from halfway between the building and the fence, which was even better, since someone would have to either hop the fence and get at least halfway to the building, or land their helo on the roof to snort that traffic.
Since this box already supports IPSEC for the VPN, if it could use IPSEC for the AP clients instead of WEP it would be a really great box.
And we got ours for $99 US.
I haven't tried using two of them as bridges with an IPSEC VPN between them, but that's on our list and it might allow us to replace the Linux boxes that we use now, although we'll probably wait to test it until we can do it with
Before this, the only generic Wi-Fi bridge was proprietary ...
I've had two 3Com Wireless LAN Workgroup Bridges connected to my Linksys AP for about 8 months now. The only difference I see is that the Linksys product is quite a bit cheaper.
.-.--
http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/cc/pd/witc/ao350a p/prodlit/a350b_ds.htm
They advertise up to 72Mbps turbo mode (with other Linksys 5GHz only .
They even have a Dual Band WAP that has both 5GHz and 2.4GHz Bands and is Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi5 Compatibility with 802.11a and 802.11b Technology. WAP51AB WAP54A
Doh, almost missed this headline. Anyways, I modded the WET11 to use USB power. It actually works quite well. At full transmit power consumption hovered around 490mA at 5V, just squeezing under the USB max. Haven't had a chance to put a how-to up yet, but it's quite easy. If you want to get in touch with me just reply to this thread. WET11 is pretty alright :)
While some will say that the WET is so cool.. it esstinally is a WAP11 stuck in client ap mode. Wait.. my wap11 does client AP mode. OK.. so the WET
must be much cheaper since my WAP11 will do all other forms of bridging and I could turn it into a regular AP later if i needed to. So wets are cheaper.. uhh NOPE.. WET is listed at $129. I just picked up a new WEP11 at frys for $99. So while you may have a point about RF strength, the WAP gives me
2 antennees.. It looks like the WET has priced it self out of the usefullness. Linksys marketing should not get their asses kicked by their own products. Rather they should sell the WET at half the WAP11 and then its starts to look like a deal.
Until the WET is $40 Ill continue to buy WAP11's