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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."
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~
You must be looking for Slashdot Pro. You can sign up for just $99/mo. You've reached Slashdot (lite) by mistake.
Amazing magic tricks
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. :-(
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
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