The Coming Time for 802.11a?

abhikhurana writes " This article on 80211-planet.com predicts a real boom in the market for 802.11a in the coming year. An excerpt from the article: In tests in my SOHO LAN, I found that in real world conditions, 802.11a averaged four times faster than 802.11b. In addition, with its 5GHz frequency, 802.11a avoids the interference slow-downs that b must suffer with microwave ovens, high-end wireless phones, and other 802.11b networks. Also makes an interesting read for knowing about the technologies which maybe driving the wireless bandwagon in the coming years."

Comments

Nice...

[chainrust]

Here is a nice comparison of B and A on 80211 planet. Also, a whitepaper for A is available at Proxim Communications. Also, don't forget the FAQ!

My personal feeling about this: The U.S. government should sponsor a 802.11a nationwide network, so we can all have cell phone and data access anywhere, and a provider can 'buy' an area from the government to charge wireless rates for. Kind of like the current system we have in place for land-line phones.

Everyone comes out happy:
the cell phone company has a local monopoly
the customer has access to wireless data and phone everywhere
the government 's pocket gets fatter.

The truth is buried in the article

[Brento]

The truth is about halfway down the article, where they acknowledge that 802.11g is coming down the pike with better range than 802.11a, plus backwards compatibility with 802.11b. Any of us who already have investments in 802.11b are going to be more than a little hesitant to rip out that infrastructure and replace it with another incompatible format - when we can get an even better format, with backwards compatibility, by waiting a few more months.

I don't even buy the argument that homeowners just now getting wireless should get 802.11a equipment: they can't take their wireless cards and use them at public or private 802.11b access points. Why pay extra for something you can only use at home, when you can get something cheaper that works all over the US? It would be like buying a cellular phone that only worked in your neighborhood.

802.11b is good enough

[joshv]

I think we have reached the 'good enough' point with wireless networking. 802.11b is faster than any internet connection I will have in the forseeable future, and performs perfectly well for the small day to day file transfers over the LAN. It doesn't work for large file transfers, but when I need to do those, I pull out the Wi-Fi card, walk the laptop over to the hub, and plug a spare cable into it's ethernet port.

I won't be upgrading until there is a compelling reason, and I can't see there being one for at least the next 3-5 years.

-josh

And how long....

[Andy Dodd]

Until the 5 GHz band becomes just as crowded as 2.4?

802.11a is not the wave of the future. It's going to be a nice for those hardcore who absolutely need obscene speed and live in an interference-prone environment.

It has to compete against the HUGE installed base of 11b hardware that is *far cheaper* than 11a and is more than adequate for 90% of the people out there.

I was thinking of upgrading to 11a since I happen to be a power user - But that means that the card I bought would be useless on most networks I might roam to (such as my former college's wireless network). In the end, 11b won out because:
a) I already had some 11b equipment
b) My parents had 11b equipment
c) I have never had problems with 11b interference - Spread spectrum is pretty resistant to CW interference (Microwave ovens - People could run microwaves all they want in my apartment and I wouldn't notice any difference on my network.) and 900 MHz analog is "good enough" for me in the cordless phone arena, which means that the most famous 802.11b interference culprit (2.4 GHz phones) isn't present.
d) 11b hardware was a helluva lot cheaper than 11a hardware.

802.11a -- A personal heck.

[Umrick]

Our facility was 802.11a (using Intel APs). The amount of trouble we had was just this side of insurmountable. Fortunately, thanks to a manufacturing defect in the Intel APs, we got to send them back for replacement 802.11b units.

The real world:

• The shorter range means a much greater density of units in any facility of any size. Fourty feet is the normal range.
  
• If you have an older building with lots of brick/cement/steel, 802.11a will not penetrate nearly as well. Expect your range to drop to as little as 20 feet in a dense structure.
  
• Many of the currently available access points will not roam properly(Intel at least).
  
• There are no readily available antennas yet available for increasing range baring some nice directionals.
  
• Average throughput in our environment was 6Mbs due to roaming computer(Medical practice) problems. They would authenticate to one unit, but never roam until they lost all signal from the first.
  

That said, a small office or home that can be covered by a single unit should work acceptably. I would wait for 802.11g before installing a large number of units based on 802.11a, especially for any core business use.

Just a note

[afidel]

If your microwave is interfering with ANY 2.4Ghz product then REPLACE IT ASAP. A microwave in good operating condition should not leak any 2.4Ghz radiation as the entire chamber should be properly sealed and the screen on the front of the microwave should keep the radiation in. Some people freak about cell phones and wlan devices, but the max power output of an 802.11b radio is 100mw for a client card, while a microwave over has radiated power in the hundreds of watts.