802.11 RF Amp

MikeLRoy writes "Linksys has announced a signal amp, to be available soon, for their wireless ap's/routers. While many people have been using commercial rf amps hacked onto their ap's, linksys now has a commercial solution!" I wonder when ISPs are going to stop soft-pedaling the anti-NATing provisions in their terms of service.

Comments

Hmm cool.

[Anonymous Coward]

While many people have been using commercial rf amps hacked onto their ap's, linksys now has a commercial solution!

Now if they could just come up with a commercial solution, we'd be all set.

Re:Hmm cool.

[Anonymous Coward]

forget it, I'm sticking with the commercial solution

(usually it's better than the commercial options)

then again, I haven't seen what the commercial vendors are offering!

Re:Hmm cool.

[Reece400]

I think that it may turn out to be something more like a signal repeater or something.. or maybe linksys just put really weak antennas in their APs so they could sell this later... we'll have to wait & see..

Reece,

Re:Hmm cool.

[Yottabyte84]

Aftermarket antennas from cisco work fine on WAP11s.

Re:Hmm cool.

[andrew_0812]

I doubt that linksys put weak antennas on their APs. I just switched from a SMC Barricade that had to be reset every day or so to the Linksys wireless router. I get better coverage with the Linksys. I have also read that Linksys has the best signal of many of the AP vendors.

Re:Hmm cool.

[Istealmymusic]

I just switched from a SMC Barricade that had to be reset every day or so

I used to have an SMC Barricade...same problem. Don't buy an SMC Barricade SMC7004AWBR!

Re:Hmm cool.

[andrew_0812]

Or a SMC Barricade SMC7004VWBR either.

One way.

[Trusty Penfold]

To improve the range of a wireless connection you would need an amplifier at both ends. With this large box attached to the access point, the AP can transmit packets further ... but this is useless if you laptop, say, hasn't got the power to transmit packets back. This thing just introduces a zone of one-way communication around the inner zone of 2-way communication.

Re:One way.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, this device increases the RX sensitivity and power as well as that of the TX, thus giving a greater range regardless of what you have in your laptop.

Re:One way.

[ZeLonewolf]

To improve the range of a wireless connection you would need an amplifier at both ends. With this large box attached to the access point, the AP can transmit packets further ... but this is useless if you laptop, say, hasn't got the power to transmit packets back. This thing just introduces a zone of one-way communication around the inner zone of 2-way communication.

Erm, no... it's a signal amp... so if you stick it halfway between a laptop and a wireless AP, it will amplify the signal from both. It's just like using a repeater in a cabled network.

Re:One way.

[balamw]

Actually, I would presume that this thing has LNA on the receive side, and maybe one for transmit. Many applications like this where the mobile transmitter is small, has low power consumption requirements and inefficient antenna design are reverse link limited, and adding amplification (gain) on the receive side alone can increase range of the overall system. Since the transmitter is stationary and plugged in power is usually not much of a consideration for the transmit side of an access point.

Balam

Re:One way.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not entirely true. If the signal going FROM the hub to the laptop are strengthened, the data transmission would definately be improved, but in most cases, one can also improve the "reception" capability of the hub by boosting the recieving antenna gain. But by the same token, these systems run full duplex (transmit and recieve at the same time), so if the transmitter is boosted, it COULD concievably de-sensitize the reciever.

Not sure of the exact machanisms IF the hub actually transmits and recieves at exactly the same time, but now that I think about it, perhaps not (being digital - it COULD be simplex).

If you've even been near a powerful FM or even a TV transmitter, and try to use an FM radio, you would be hard pressed to pick up anything else BUT the FM transmitter.

RF can get into ANYTHING... as a 1st class FCC license holder, and former Chief Engineer of a 25KW FN station, I know only too well what RF can do. Ask your food, when you take it out of the Microwave oven.

Re:One way.

[druzicka]

But by the same token, these systems run full duplex (transmit and recieve at the same time)

No, 802.11b is not full duplex. You transmit and receive on the same channel in the 2.4 GHz spectrum. For example, if you are using channel 6 within the 2.4 GHz spectrum (one of three non-overlapping channels), you are Tx and Rx on the 2.437 GHZ frequency.

In many ways, 802.11b Access Points give you similar performance to what you would find in a 10BaseT hub, which were very common in Enterprise networks 5-10 years ago. Some of the same caveats apply... At a certain point, adding additional hosts to the same collision domain really decreases the available bandwitdth to each host.

Re:One way.

[Andorion]

Actually, like puzzled (12525) posted: "FYI half of the reason to deploy an amp is for the LNA (low noise amplifier) effect - besides boosting output they pump up the return signal by 10 - 14 dB."

Give him the karma. And mods, why the hell are you modding up this post's parents, and it's parent's parent?

The amp doesn't go halfway between anything, and you don't need a similar device on the other end.

-Berj

Re:One way.

[Morgahastu]

But its not stuck between the laptop and the AP. Its stuck ON the AP. If the incoming signal can be amplified then its strong enough for the AP to pick it up in the first place.

Re:One way.

[gjgjgj77]

what is a FCC first class license, is it the HAM license you are talking about ?

Re:One way.

[mesocyclone]

Errr... there is no longer a 1st class FCC Commercial License. Mine turned into a "General Class" a couple of decades ago. Second class also turned into a "General Class."

(for those who ask, this is a kind of license needed to be a technical person on various kinds of FCC stuff, such as two way radios and broadcast stations). The term "engineer" in broadcasting is like the term "engineer" in trains - it doesn't mean you are an engineer. I started as a broadcast "engineer" when I was in high school with a 1st class FCC License (commonly called "First Phone").

Re:One way.

[shastafinlayson]

I agree with the comment that an LNA would be required for this to be really effective. I'm not sure if this "AMP" also acts as an LNA. I suppose if you had two AP's and were trying for a bridge config.... Although, this should be a really effective tool for jamming my neighbors cordless phone.

Re:One way.

[div_2n]

I think you are confused as to what an amp is and what it does and doesn't do.

An amplifier takes raw signal (including noise) and amplifies the power on it in the direction it is set to amplify. There are bidirectional amplifiers to do it in both directions.

Amps are best placed as close to the antenna as possible to reduce loss and noise. As a signal travels across cable, noise and loss increase. Thus, a short "jumper" cable is ideal to connect the antenna to the amp.

Putting an amp on one side of the communication pathway will improve the signal and perhaps the distance a bit. The biggest improvement will be in the quality of the wireless link at the far reaches of the original signal.

To greatly improve distance, it is absolutely necessary to amplify on both ends. The end goal is to improve your signal to noise ratio. The weaker your signal from the other end, the worse that ratio becomes.

Re:One way.

[andrew_0812]

What do you mean? This is slashdot, everyone is Informative, even if they are wrong.

Re:One way.

[LarsG]

In many ways, 802.11b Access Points give you similar performance to what you would find in a 10BaseT hub

It is actually a bit worse. Bad signal levels, noise, multipath and other issues conspire to make the throughput of the average "11Mbps" 802.11b network lower than you would expect on a regular 10Mbps 10baseT hub with a similar number of clients.

Clients scale back to 1, 2 or 5.5 Mbps if the signal quality is not sufficient for 11. A client sending 1K of data at 1Mbps use the same air-time as a client sending 11K at 11Mbps.

On a shared hub, all clients can 'see' each other, so when two nodes transmit at the same time they detect a collission. On wireless, you can have hidden nodes (both clients can hear the AP, but they can't hear eachother) so you can get collissions but the clients don't know that they collided. To mitigate this problem, you can revert to an RTS/CTS system (AP tells nodes when they can send) but at the cost of lower throughput.

2.4GHz is also becoming crowded. Bluetooth, DECT phones and other equipment also use the same frequencies. This creates more noise and interference.

Etc..

When having more than a few clients, expect aggregate thrughput on 802.11B to be closer to 4-5Mbps than 11.

Re:One way.

[kallen3]

actually you can receive signals at a greater distance than you would expect without any amplification. So the 2 way communication range will be extended but not necessarily on a 1:1 basis. Possibly more along the line of 1 to .707

FINALLY!

[derrith]

I've been waiting for a legit solution for so long, I'm so glad they finally decided that it was worthwhile to produce one that is not hacked together

Huh?

[bobdotorg]

I looked at the link, and was wondering: How the hell is this thing FCC compliant in the U.S.?

Now we only need Pringles to intruduce a bigger can.

Re:Huh?

[LostCluster]

Because this device emmits at the FCC max, something most APs do not. Yeah, this thing would rock inside a Pringles can, but it's likely even the worst designed can will put the setup over the limit.

Anti-WAP?

[Motherfucking Shit]

I wonder when ISPs are going to stop soft-pedaling the anti-NATing provisions in their terms of service

Check SpeakEasy DSL. Not only don't they care about NAT, they don't mind wireless connecting sharing either, so long as none of the people (ab)using your connection are violating the AUP. As with any ISP you're responsible for anyone using your connection. In other words, setup your WAP, secure it to trusted friends and family only, and you're A-OK.

And I'm not even a SpeakEasy customer. I wish RoadRunner would implement similarly "with-it" policies...

Re:Anti-WAP?

[sirfuzz]

We've had SpeakEasy DSL for almost 2 years now - and we also have been very pleased with their service. Although we have had occasional flake-outs with our DSL modem, these were usually due to me having the room too hot. When DSL was flaking out for about a day, we called tech support, they did the standard troubleshooting (what lights are on the modem, etc.). They talked to the people at our local telco and arranged for our circuit to be reprovisioned, whatever that means. After they did that, I think we've only had about 1 or 2 flake-outs in the last month!

Needless to say, we've been really happy with our Speakeasy DSL.

(Sorry about any misspellings / bad grammar - I'm on vacation! :-P )

Re:Anti-WAP?

[wandernotlost]

I wonder when ISPs are going to stop soft-pedaling the anti-NATing provisions in their terms of service

When people stop paying them to do so and start paying ISPs who don't get a kick out of deceiving and walking all over their customers, as AT&T and RCN have done to me. I can't even begin to express the comfort it has given me to switch to Speakeasy.

It's not that they don't care about wireless access. They actually encourage it. Imagine that, a company that wants you to get the most out of the service you're paying them for, unlike most of the rest of the industry, which wants you to use your connection as little as possible, so that they don't have to spend any of the money you're giving them on their network, and browbeats you when you try to do anything more than passively read web pages and email.

Re:Anti-WAP?

[Mean_Nishka]

They rock.. And they even gave me a free xbox! :)

Re:Anti-WAP?

[fkamogee]

I have RoadRunner (TWC Albany), and while I don't care to go check the current TOS right now, I can tell you that the anti-NAT rules not strictly enforced anymore. They know many people have NAT in their homes, including wireless. When they came to my home recently to service the cable modem, I was perfectly forthcoming with my NAT setup in that same room, and they didn't say boo.

no way

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not a good reason

it doesn't work so well if I plug the phone into the power socket on the wall either.

the routers can easily be set up to drop any dhcp responses from the dsl modems
just in case someone does that sort of thing.

it also won't let you arp yourself as the ip of the dns server either if they set up the system correctly

none of these are reasons to block nat setups

the only real reason would be to get more $$ for the extra clients

NAT is hard to detect

[Gothmolly]

Unless you start snooping into the data packets, looking for User-Agent strings, etc (if you're NATting 2 different OSes behind it). You can make educated guesses (why do all TCP connects come from port 61000+?) but you really can't KNOW if someone is NATting.

Re:NAT is hard to detect

[Phasedshift]

This is somewhat easy to find people that are extremely likely to be NAT'ing actually, usually with no extra hardware than what the ISP already has.

You can look at the source port of the packet (going from the customer to wherever, i.e. ingress to the ISP's network), to be fairly confident that the customer is NAT'ing their traffic.

Most NAT implimentations change the source port to a very high port number (usually in the 60,000+ range) when they translate (along with changing other info). You can probably be fairly safe to log anything above 40k (although some research into what more popular 'ethernet routers' that do NAT use for port ranges would be prudent). Normal traffic for most implimentations of a TCP/IP stack won't typically source off of ports that are reserved for NAT'ing, so again, you can be fairly sure they are NAT'ing if you 'catch' them (enough to call them to ask them about it anyway.. that way if they aren't, you don't shut down a paying customer for no reason).

On a cisco, you can setup an extended access list applied to the interface the traffic is hitting, with logging enabled to see who is NAT'ing, see if it continues for a while, and if it does, you can be fairly assured they are NAT'ing traffic.

Mind you, there are many ways around this for some implimentations of NAT (i.e. changing the port range NAT'd packets source off of), but for average Joe User hooking up an 'ethernet router' that does NAT, they could be caught fairly easily by this (and other methods that work in conjunction with this).

(this is just a brief summary, don't blame me if it isn't detailed enough).

Re:NAT is hard to detect

[Anonymous Coward]

It is just an extended writeup of what the original poster already said. It is a method that is not guaranteed to work, and as soon as it is used you will see new router firmware that circumvents it.
(there really is no "port range reserved for NAT" and it isn't required either)

Re:NAT is hard to detect

[Spirilis]

In addition to what you said, I've heard that NAT routers may also decrement the TTL of the packet, which might give a hint.

Re:NAT is hard to detect

[Ancil]

One way ISP's try to keep people from NAT'ing is by not giving them their bandwidth over ethernet. They will give you something that plugs into USB, and some Windows software. Install the software and BAM, your Windows box is on the network. But, of course, it will refuse to forward packets.

Obivously this is particularly worisome to the Linux crowd.

Re:Anti-NAT

[akb]

If that would bring down your ISP, get a new ISP.

Re:Anti-NAT

[bromoseltzer]

SBC/SNET says (in so many words) that home networks (NATted) are OK, as long as only one computer is used at a time. I think this means only one packet at a time, and I can live with this. :-)

More likely they will not appreciate if I suck up potential paying customers behind my NAT box. So I expect they'll eventually say something about service to one household.

Merry Holidays!

Surely there's some way of stopping that?

[AbRASiON]

The ISP should be able to block that occuring shouldn't they (as far as I know)

I'm a little rusty on networking, but surely that's an issue with how the network is setup?

Re:Anti-NAT

[Gleep]

Why not have a firewall box in front of your (l)users to filter out DHCP in that direction? seems like a simple enough operation...

That's a nice-looking amp...

[BitHive]

...but ours goes up to 11.

Re:That's a nice-looking amp...

[zer0vector]

Eleven. Exactly. One louder.

Two way is feasible

[BSOD from above]

When you broadcast at higher power, generally you would use a comparable signal amp on on incoming signal. So your underpowered laptop signal is greatly magnified (errors and all) after it is received at the hub. Larger distances then translate into lower available bandwidth as opposed to no connection. This is pushing and pulling signal from one end instead of pushing from both.

Get yours here!

Re:Two way is feasible

[packeteer]

I doubt that a laptop needs a huge ammount of upload bandwidth anyway. I don't see anyone running servers off of laptops accross a network. So even though the laptop will have errors in the signal it will still only be a little slower than the download speed which is what a laptop is used for (checking email, browsing webpages). Personally i would like to purchase something like this as i have been thinking about making my own but that can introduce my own errors anyway.

Re:Two way is feasible

[aminorex]

> I don't see anyone running servers off of laptops
> accross a network.

Funny... I do just that. I have a lot of old
laps that aren't really usable as interface machines
anymore, but have cardbus 100tx nics, and use a lot
less power and run a lot quieter than some midi-tower
would, so i have them in my closet doing nat, serving
web pages, serving mail, etc.

In a professional environment, they'd be replaced
with rackmount systems, but as a good way to be
green, recycle the hardware, and factor my
infrastructure for maintainability, old laps as
servers makes a lot of good sense.

I'm talking home use here, of course.

Re:Two way is feasible

[packeteer]

Ok i knew by saying nobody does it the people who would were goign to speak up but i still believe the same thing. Laptops are generally not used as servers. Your laptops are not running over wireless are they? I can see using ANY old computer for servers in the closet but i cannot imaging a bunch of wireless capable laptops running apache and whatnot.

Re:Two way is feasible

[aminorex]

Given that my NAT box is a laptop, rather than
spending $100 on a WAP, I just used a PCMCIA card
with an antenna, so, yeah, in this case, one is
wireless -- although only the p2p services running
on my actual, physiological, lap are being served
through a wireless link.

God forbid.

[mwillems]

The entire point of 802.11b is that it is low power, allowing a lot of use in a small area. If my neigbours all start to boost their signals (both ways of course), my 2.4 GHz RF environment is going to be be useless. X.10, cordless phones, bluetooth, 802.11b all share this frequency (and I have all four of those at home...)

In the UK, until recently 802.11b was illegal for commercial use because it was full, making it useless. My car the other day would not open in a high-RF environment (near Toronto's CN tower).

Can we please keep this frequency useable? Amplifying will kill it. An RF signal of this type can carry 30 miles very easily, making it useless if we all start amplifying.

Michael (radio amateur, VA3MVW)

Re:God forbid.

[phunhippy]

My car the other day would not open in a high-RF environment

did ya consider trying the Key?? its a nice shiny metal thing they give you with your new car :)

Re:God forbid.

[Tailhook]

"Can we please keep this frequency useable?"

No, we may not keep 802.11b usable. We must overload the band with as much crap as possible. We must then amplify select instances of the crap, to compete with the other crap. Finally, when the band is hopelessly swamped by crap, we'll react badly with regulatory crap.

Because, you see, if I can't dribble out $200 for an el-cheepo access point, and then operate every cotton picking ethernet device on all three floors of my half acre property at maximum bandwidth, something's wrong, and I'll just have to "fix" it with an el-cheepo amp. Screw anyone else. Screw the standards and the morons that established them. I come first.

Mkay?

Re:God forbid.

[frohike]

Yes, that's funny :), but a lot of cars these days come with a rudimentary alarm that will get irritated at you if you try to open the doors without having used the remote, and you locked it with the remote. It's a really simplistic defense against slim jims and the like.

Re:God forbid.

[Lumpy]

RF signal of this type can carry 30 miles very easily, until it hits something that has a strong adsorbtion rate at 2.4Ghz something very uncommon and non-abundant like..... water...

you haven messed very much with wifi or anything in the microwave range have you.

I have a 1 watt transmit amp on each end of a 23 DBi gain dish link... IT WILL NOT FIRE THROUGH A TREE because of the adsorption rate of water. I wished I could burn through a tree but I cant not even with the huge power (as far as wifi is concerned) I am using... (shhhh dont tell the FCC I'm violated every fricking law with this expieriement)

it will NOT travel 30 miles, it will NOT kill everything or cause huge problems for anything but low end gear that barely works anyways... (your car keyfob/car alarm opener for example.. it dont matter who makes it they are low grade junk in regards to the RF functions of it.)

I can show you at least 5 houses that have a field strength at least 10 times that of anything you could buy in 802.11b equipment... and it's because of MICROWAVE OVENS that are old and leaky..

please dont fearmonger... these tiny toys that linksys are selling wont hurt anything... and 95% of those out ther eamplifying any of their 802.11 gear are not capable of doing it anywhere remotely correct to get anything but a marginal gain.. Hell some of these people are using the worse feedline and antenna designs that are attenuating more than they gain...

stop worrying... the no-code ham licenses has more of a chance at ruining the airwaves than amplifying 802.11 traffic.

Re:God forbid.

[shadowj]

Mercedes models don't come with the usual shiny, metal things. The "key" is actually a vaguely key-shaped RF and IR transmitter. A small traditional metal key is buried inside it, and can be used to unlock the door in case of a failure... you have to pry a plastic cap off the hidden keyhole on the door. The emergency key won't start the car.

Re:God forbid.

[Technician]

He bought one of the X10 cameras from the evil advert! It is the only product I know of from X10 that uses the 2.4 Ghz Band. The wireless RF light controllers are below 400 Meg. I forgot the exact spec, but I believe they are in the 300 Meg band. The carrier current remotes are near 120 Khz.

Re:God forbid.

[mwillems]

Actually, I have played with microwave up there a bit, yes, and I do have WiFI all through the house; and although this absorbs a little more than, say, 440 MHz (which I use all the time), it certainly goes through "things" and trees. Yes, it is attenuated, but it does go through. And as for not travelling 30 miles: it will travel 3000 miles, or 30,000 for that matter, with the right antenna and line-of-sight. Ask NASA.

As for the FCC, well it (and its equivalent in other countries) has all those laws for good reasons. They're there to make comms possible, not just to hassle us for no reason.

Simple fact: my neighbour's X.10 cam and cordless phone interferes with my use of the frequency, and the higher the power, the more neighbours get to interfere.

Mike VA3MVW

Re:Anti-NAT

[g4dget]

I'm sorry, but that's no way to run an ISP. An ISP should provide some degree of insulation of customers from one another. There are a lot worse things that people can do by accident, or deliberately, than "plug in a NAT backwards".

Amps? Erk

[FrostedWheat]

I don't like the idea of amps for 802.11.

People seem to be getting excellent range out of very low power devices using fairly cheap antennas!

Pumping out more power will just increase interference with other 802.11 networks in the area. Not to mention it would almost certainly be illegal in the UK to use one of these things :)

Re:Amps? Erk

[chriton]

I have to agree. I have two high gain directional atennae; one at each end of my wireless link & I get 22Mbps all the time (it's a DLINK using PBCC). Before the antennae, the link was dodgey at best. Now, without increasing the power I'm putting out to the neighborhood, I have exactly what I need. (Well, I suppose some neighors in some particular directions are getting a little more, but some less as well.)

Amplifiers just make things more & more crowded. I have too much stuff running in the 2.4GHz range already and do occasionally have some interference problems, especially with the cheaper of my cordless phones.

I know it's legel, I just don't like it much.

Re:Amps? Erk

[FrostedWheat]

I'm using a Linksys WAP11 (v2) and I'm getting a usable signal about 5 houses down the road. And that was with the built-in antenna(s).

I've since got a small omni-directional antenna put onto the roof, got it plugged into the same AP; I'm now getting a useable signal half-way across the town.

My recieving antenna ain't to hot either :)

All this without an amp. A few small antennas, and little thought as to where to place them will normally give you all the range you need.

Re:Amps? Erk

[FrostedWheat]

I get 22Mbps all the time

Do you notice the extra speed over the standard 11mb/s stuff?

Trying to decide if it's worth upgrading now to 22Mb/s equipment, or wait a bit until 55Mb/s stuff matures a little.

Re:Amps? Erk

[Yottabyte84]

I played with a few Linksys WAP11 v2.2 at work a while ago. They can be set to do 22Mbps at http://deviceip/weca.htm. Benchmark at 11Mbps : 5Mbps thruput. @22Mbps : 6.2Mbps thruput.

Re:Amps? Erk

[chriton]

Sorry - I was doing Holiday stuff. I chose the 22Mbps equipment (DLink) because it was the same price as the 11Mbps equipment and it's compatible with 11. It's all I've ever had. I have run the network in both modes & there is a difference when transferring larger files between PCs on the network. I didn't measure it to see if it's exactly twice as fast, however. The latency is low enough you don't even notice it when browsing the web even in 11Mbps mode, so there's not much difference there.

FCC regulations?

[Anonymous Coward]

What are the FCC regulations regarding the maximum legal RF Signal strength allowed in these wireless devices? Aren't they under the part 15 regulations (low power transmissions).

Or are the regulations written to put a cap on the intensity or "Field strength" of the radiations like the limits in the FM band (88-108mhz)?

Can someone comment on this?

Re:FCC regulations?

[Anonymous Coward]

1 watt actual power

4 watt ERP (with the antenna)

Re:Please translate... (Serious)

[mwillems]

Ah... I open it with an RF-operated key (it's a Mercedes). And no matter how I pressed, nothing happened. MOst disconcerting. From using my radios I know this to be a high-RF environment. I could open the car using a metal 'emergency' key, and once away from that area, all worked OK again.

Agreed, SpeakEasy ROCKS

[phillymjs]

I dumped my Comcast cable modem for SpeakEasy DSL just about a year ago, and I've never been happier with an ISP.

I've never had an outage, I can (and do) run servers in my house to handle my own mail, www, etc. Their phone reps are courteous and don't suffer total brain shutdown when I mention the magic sentence, "I'm using a Mac."-- not that I've needed support beyond a little help sorting out a password issue when I wanted to configure the INCLUDED dial-up access in case I needed it.

When I needed an additional IP address last year, I called them up and had one in a couple minutes. I just upgraded my service from 608K down/128K up to 1.5M down/384K up, and it was not a hassle at all. Since my employer chips in $50/month of my ISP charges, this higher speed service now costs me $40 per month, the same I was paying a year ago for my cable modem with all of its restrictions.

To all Slashgeeks who are able: If you have a choice, go with SpeakEasy-- you won't regret it!

~Philly

Re:Agreed, SpeakEasy ROCKS

[garcia]

not all of us can afford the high costs of DSL. I personally have never been happier than I have been w/cable (ATTBI sucks only a little, RR was great).

768k/128k is entirely too slow and too expensive. Not all of us have the $50 chip in offer.

I run servers, I have mutliple NAT'd computers, and I use an AP for my laptops.

No complaints from ATTBI. Just don't do anything stupid (like hack your modem cfg file) and you are fine.

Re:Agreed, SpeakEasy ROCKS

[GrenDel Fuego]

What exactly do you mean by this? Are you referring to their connections through Covad (and probably others)?

If so, it's not just "rebranding". Covad provides the DSL connection, which connects you back to Speakeasy's POP in order for them to provide you with bandwith.

It's the same with most ISPs. If you buy a T1/T3, DSL, or modem, the company providing the line isn't usually the same company that provides the internet connectivity. Cable modems are generally an exception to this.

I looked at that link and I kinda got a stiffy

[Anonymous Coward]

Sick huh? Something about that photo looks like fun.

Sure hope this is anonymous.

Is a signal strength war already escalating?

[phr2]

A few people are always trying maximize the range of their WLAN's, reach through more walls, etc. But are there enough to support a "mass market" product like this? Or does it mean people are looking for more powerful AP transmitters because they're trying to overcome interference from other WLAN's in the same office building? And will those other WLAN users jack up their own transmitters in response? I wonder if we're seeing the beginning of an RF power output war, sort of like we already have between cell phone carriers with towers along highway 101 (in Calif.) and similar freeways. This is NOT good. We get cooked by enough microwave emissions in our offices already.

I'd be a lot happier if the FCC got rid of some of those UHF TV channel frequency monopolies and gave the spectrum back to the public that rightfully owns it, to try to lower contention over the narrow strip of bandwidth that 802.11 uses. There's also much more use of wireless these days by non-mobile devices than there really needs to be, when those devices could perfectly well use wired ethernet, or maybe a much lower-powered shorter-range wireless scheme (like a higher-bandwidth Bluetooth) to an access point that's nearby (i.e. in the same room or close to it, not far away in the building). However, that last part is harder. Tragedy of the commons and all that.

Re:Is a signal strength war already escalating?

[phr2]

There's another issue too, which is boosting your AP transmitter doesn't boost your laptop's transmitter. Just because you'll hear your AP better doesn't mean it will hear you.

You're getting worse performance with your Powerbook than most people I know: in a residential building (drywall, etc.) you should be able to use it everywhere in the unit. If you're using an 802.11 PC card (not built in wifi), an external antenna might help.

Re:Is a signal strength war already escalating?

[zaffir]

There was a fix for this posted a while back. Basically, it boils down to the WiFi antenna being out of place a little bit. Here's the thread at Ars about it.

Re:Anti-NAT

[silas_moeckel]

LOL ok yea it's posible allthough doubtfull any DSLM worth it's salt dosent forward DHCP responce packets in from the CPE and dosent forward DHCP requests out to the CPE end either. If a small ISP has missed bridge configuration 101 (Yes most DSLAM's especialy cheap ones are simply bridges) but in my state at least the DSLAM is actualy the Telco's the small ISP gets a single ATM connection into there cloud and PVC's are setup for each port to there router generaly running PPPoE to that router. The first thing you do after you get it working is get it secure (yea I know it's nice ot say secure first but for a small company working is normaly more of a priority than secure) BTW if you were to actualy worry about this they shouldent allow windows boxes turn on ICS the wrong way and you have a DHCP server on your cable modem / DSL. Oh Cable modems may have more of an issue with this they would have to filter at the cable modem or the head end (I dont think any of the cable modems can receive on there transmit frequencies at the same time so any modem to modem connection need to pass through the head end? Would like to be corrected if I'm wrong on this I dont nroamly deal with this low end gear :)

How about upping the signal strength for free?

[Kelerain]

The Wap11 Hack courtesy seattle wireless.

Basically using a different firmware/snmp agent for a different ap based on the same chipset you can up the signal strength at no charge. It is risky however, so I take no responsibility blah blah blah. Maybe thats all the amp does is up the built in power.. ;)

Re:How about upping the signal strength for free?

[Agent Green]

Only works for the WAP11 v1.x. Won't work on the WAP11 v2.x or any of the combo router units. I've got a WAP11 v2.2, and I'd be delighted to use my wireless connection in my living room...even 50' away, the connection is sunk.

I suspect the amplifier isn't limited to LinkSys products either, although its design is meant to fit with them.

Re:Anti-NAT

[nolife]

Plug the "LAN" side of a NAT box into the ISP's pipe and now it's broadcasting itself as a DHCP server. Not good.

What prevents a user firing up a DHCP server or TFTP on a machine that is directly attached to the ISP and does not have NAT running? Nothing..

I don't think your theory is a reason to prevent NAT.

Re:Anti-NAT

[Anonymous Coward]

In addition there's all these people who want to buy $40 a month access and then provide service for their whole neighborhood. Guess what - you can't do that because the ISP can't stay in business at that rate. If you want to share, go ahead, but be prepared to pay. $150-200 month sounds reasonable.

more info

[trb]

That link didn't show much (at least for me). You might want to try WSB24, which points to a data sheet.

• Peak Gain +14 dBm
• Receiver Gain +20 dBm (nominal)
• Tx Input Power +5 dBm (minimum) - +20 dBm (maximum)

Re:more info

[B3Geek]

* Peak Gain +14 dBm
* Receiver Gain +20 dBm (nominal)
* Tx Input Power +5 dBm (minimum) - +20 dBm maximum)

Those are power figures, not gain, but it is what the data sheet says. Not necessarily a good sign.

big deal. ydi.com and rflinx.com have quality amps

[puzzled]

A while ago on slashdot there was breathless coverage of a Linksys hardware 'hack' that raised their 30mw AP to 100mw. Some knowledgeable RF engineer took a look and it *was* putting out 100mw - 31mw in channel, and 69 mw of crap spattered all over 2350 - 2550 MHz. All that 'hack' accomplished was giving more ammunition for those satellite radio folks that want to regulate the ISM band.

Instead of building a 100mw radio with good sensitivity, Linksys is building a cheesy amp to go with their cheesy AP.

If you genuinely need some amplification I've used YDI.com and Teletronics.com amps in the 250mw to 1 watt range and not had much trouble with any of them. RFLinx or RFLynx(sp?) has come out with a 750mw amp for $200, but I haven't tried that product yet.

FYI half of the reason to deploy an amp is for the LNA (low noise amplifier) effect - besides boosting output they pump up the return signal by 10 - 14 dB. There is a real call for a 150mw output amp with a solid LNA for client side problems, but that is a story for another day.

Re:big deal. ydi.com and rflinx.com have quality a

[puzzled]

http://www.ydi.com
http://www.teletronics.com
ht tp://www.rflinx.com

YDI and TT are $400 - $500 depending on form factor and output. RFLinx are $200 complete or $100 for just the board (you solder).

URL to his obit. page

[tytso]

I don't think you need to worry. What Linksys is doing is not nearly as interesting as people might assume (which is I suppose is par for the course for Slashdot :-) What I'm pretty sure is going on is that the wireless access point on the linksys doesn't have a very strong radio transmitter to begin with (I'm guessing 30-50mW), and the signal amplifer just raises the transmit power to the max legal limit for the 2.4GHz band.

The Cisco 350 Access Point (and wireless cards) has better receive sensitivity (I don't know if that's due to a better built-in antenna, or better radio circuity, or both), and a stronger transmit power than most other 802.11 cards (selectable from 5mw to 100mW). In contrast, the Lucent Wavelan Silver card has a 31 mW transmitter. I don't know what the transmit power for the Linksys access point, since it's not listed on the web site or in the user's guide, but they claim an outdoor range of 1500 feet at 1 Mbps, and 500 feet at 11 Mbps. For comparison, the Orinocco access point claims 1750 feet at 1 Mbps, and 525 feet at 11 Mbps, and the Cisco 350 access point claims an outdoor range of 2000 feet at 1 Mbps and 800 feet at 11 Mbps. If we assume that both Cisco and Linksys are exagerating to an equal extent for the best case scenario, it seems pretty clear that the Lucent transmitter is less powerful than the Cisco 350.

Of course, as radio amateurs know, transmitter power doesn't have as much effect on range as some people might think. That's why QRP operators can sometimes communicate with people halfway across the globe with only a Watt or two of power. So the Linksys signal amplifier will probably not make that much of a difference.

That being said, I would recommend the Cisco 350, not because of the higher transmit power, but because the access point has better manageability (you have much finer control over how the access point operates, with various nice features such as having the AP ask your radius server whether or not a particular MAC address should be allowed, LEAP authentication/encryption, etc.). Also the Cisco 350 PC card has a full-featured Linux driver, which allows you to control the transmit power, scan for all available 802.11 networks, and so on. Another nice feature with the Cisco 350 is that you can store the WEP keys in flash memory, so that you can lend the card to house guests, without needing to reveal the WEP key. (Right now, I haven't been able to find an open source radius server that supports LEAP, so I'm using a combination of 128-bit WEP keys plus MAC address access controls. One nice thing about the 350 Access Point, as compared to the Apple airport, is that you can change WEP keys without needing to reboot the access point. So while I haven't implemented it yet, it should be possible for me to automate changing the WEP key every 24 hours, by calculating a MD5 hash of a secret plus a timestamp. That way, a shell script on my Linux laptop would allow me to get update the WEP key at the same time, automatically.)

-Ted (N1ZSU)

Re:URL to his obit. page

[Ex-MislTech]

My god I am gonna sound like a fan boy, but my god you are one sharp cookie . You helped Linus with alot of the Kernel for over the past 10 years . You prolly have his home phone number, LOL . You know you netowrking too, among other things, and I am glad to read your comments on the cisco gear becasue I used to work there. I was one of the lucky 8,500 that got cut, so to speak . I did it to myself, no degree, just getting by on ability with SS7,Voip, Tcp/ip, DOS, NT and Unix . They had some DOS SS7 test boxes for msg analysis, Inet specifically, I worked for them too at one time . When the rubber meets the road and crunch time hits we are tossed out though . I am now working in Guantanamo Bay Cuba and saved all my money while I did network, PC, and Voip camera support here on the base . I am going back and getting more certifications so I can get a decent job even with times as bad as they are now . Well I am rambling, just really impressed with your credentials kimosabe' Sincerely Ex-MislTech

Obligatory anti-Speakeasy post

[Osty]

I've posted my woes about Speakeasy before, so I won't beat a dead horse. However, just a quick recap -- nightly outtages, billing snafus, unhelpful customer service, malicious tech support (waiting until my modem was out of warranty to diagnose my nightly outtages as a modem problem, even though the modem did that from day one), and more. Sure, I can and do run my own servers, and the tech support guys don't shit a brick when I tell them how I have my network setup (it's convoluted, involving a software bridge, a switch, a hub (I'd prefer a switch here, but I had the hub on hand), an AP, and quite a few computers and appliances). They also give me a lot for my money, and I'd be hard-pressed to find a DSL service that provides me exactly what I need as Speakeasy does. However, they're far from perfect.

To all Slashgeeks who are able: If you have a choice, go with SpeakEasy -- you might regret it, but you'll never know unless you try, right?

I guess that wasn't so "anti-Speakeasy" after all. Moral of the story: "Buyer beware."

Re:Obligatory anti-Speakeasy post

[Osty]

What POP are you on? Speakeasy seems reasonably well-run in Seattle, but I don't know about anywhere else.

I'm on the Seattle POP.

Re:Obligatory anti-Speakeasy post

[Tmack]

Gotta realize though, that almost ALL dsl circuits no matter who your actuall provider is, are hooked up through your local ma-bell ILEC (Bell south/SWbell/qwest/pacbell/etc) thanks to de-regulation. It is the same cable they ran for your phones, same equipment they run their own DSL stuff on, from the DMarc point at your house (phone jack) back to a colo somewhere, just terminates into a different rack area. If you drop service, the most probable cause is ma-bell circuit/equipment failure somewhere. Distance from the nearest colo will amplify this problem, longer circuits go through more repeaters and possibly ride other colo's before actually hitting one your provider has space in. The clec I work for deals with T1's, most of the Hard Down trouble tickets (I would say well over 90%) are dead circuits thanks to local Bell equipment/line problems. Some customers seem to be plagued w/TT's opened because the circuit dies constantly, in such cases chronic tickets are opened w/the Bell to get the whole circuit checked fixed or replaced. Point being, dont blame your ISP when it could be the wires they use (and what other choice do they have on which wires to use?).

TM

Re:Obligatory anti-Speakeasy post

[Osty]

Yes, yes, I know all of that. I know Verizon handles the loop. I know Covad is the clec. I know that if I have a "Hard Down" problem, it's unlikely it's my ISP (Speakeasy). Problem is, that's not what I was having. Every night, sometimes every other night, I'd lose service for maybe 10 minutes. Just long enough to piss me off, but not long enough to still be down by the time I got through to a tech support person at Speakeasy to troubleshoot. Therefore, they could never bring Covad and/or Verizon into the loop to test for problems. Sounds like a modem problem, yes? Well, Speakeasy decided that was the case one day after my modem's warranty ran out (I beat them over the head and got a replacement for free). They sent Covad out with a new modem, and supposedly the Covad guy did some tests and said there was an issue with the loop. So Verizon tested the loop and said there were no problems. Who should I believe? All I know is that with the new modem, I go down less frequently (maybe once a week now, rather than every 1-2 days).

I'm not saying it's Speakeasy's fault that the modem went bad (or that they gave me a bad modem in the first place). I'm saying it's their fault for refusing to diagnose the problem for almost a year. If that means bringing the CLEC and ILEC in to do testing, so be it.

And that's saying absolutely nothing about the billing crap Speakeasy has put me through.

Just play it straight.

[IGnatius T Foobar]

I wonder when ISPs are going to stop soft-pedaling the anti-NATing provisions in their terms of service.

I wonder when ISP's are going to realize that it is futile to say "no NAT" or "no servers" or "max transfer gb per month" and realize that the only sane thing to do is to provide unrestricted access, and simply charge their customers what it actually costs to provide xx mb of bandwidth?

Let's not beat around the bush. Heavy users pay for heavy bandwidth. Light users pay for less bandwidth, and get less bandwidth. Trying to weasel out of providing less than the amount of data that the pipe can carry is a waste of everyone's time.

Re:Just play it straight.

[Phasedshift]

I wonder when ISP's are going to realize that it is futile to say "no NAT" or "no servers" or "max transfer gb per month" and realize that the only sane thing to do is to provide unrestricted access, and simply charge their customers what it actually costs to provide xx mb of bandwidth?

Because, if Company A has "UNLIMITED" in really big letters, but all of the restrictions (no servers, etc) are less prominent, and Company B says "We allow you to have servers, but we charge money per mbit" Joe user will go with company A almost everytime. Why?

Because "UNLIMITED" stands out, unlimited is certainly better than limited right? The average broadband internet user doesn't have a server, and chances are, they don't know how many mbps of traffic they make use of in a month. Joe user will see the part from Company A, not care about the restrictions (the fact remains that the majority of cable modem/dsl subscribers /don't/ have servers), and choose it over Company B because "UNLIMITED" means better to most people.

The 'better' answer is to have multiple tiers of service, where the base plan is unlimited, but with restrictions (no servers, one computer, etc), and another plan where you can have servers, but only if you pay extra (per mbps over a certain amount, etc)... The problem is, most people who have a '*NIX box' with a web server wont want to pay extra, and will just get the cheaper plan, so 'policing' (port scanning their address space for people running servers on well known port numbers) for people running servers, would be necessary. Also, it would probably be prudent to have a 'power users' plan, where if you have over X computers (NAT'd or not) you have to pay X amount. Mind you, this would suck for a lot of people, since they'd have to pay more per month, but overall the cost of broadband for the average user should go down. It makes sense, it just depends on how you market it.

'not hacked togethor'!?

[SHEENmaster]

You're a Microsoft spy, aren't you!

yes, it's serious

[zogger]

--yes, this is a serious problem, now think on this. Mercedes and similar electronically enhanced & advanced autos are definetly cool, no argument there of course,-until there's a terrorist event. What are you going to do then? Ever think about it? An exosatmospheric EM pulse, or airdropped graphite fibers, or the available plans on the web EM bomb. Then what? The coolness factor is now reduced to OH S|-|!7! Are you sure that's really the vehicle you want, instead of-just for grins-an older 60s muscle car that's been completely restored, or a solid old pickup? Old fashioned "just works" technology?

This is a SERIOUS consideration anymore, no place in the world is "immune" to terrorist events, and it's only a matter of when-not if- that RF/EM devices start to be used. And to me "who" uses them isn't as important as "they will most likely be used". It's too good of a weapon to think it WON'T be used. This is my opinion of course, but I think it's something to consider.

Re:yes, it's serious

[Zachary Kessin]

And its probably all cars, While my 2000 Saturn is not as nearly high tech as a Mercedes, it definitly does have a computer and a lot of IC's in it. Strong argument for my bycicle.

Re:yes, it's serious

[darco]

In case anyone is interested, here is a link to a page which describes the effects of HPM and EMP weapons on electronic equipment: http://www.aeronautics.ru/nws001/awst002.htm

Re:yes, it's serious

[Latent IT]

Of course, the power will be out, hospitals, fire departments, and police response will be in serious trouble, and everyone *else's* car will have stopped, blocking all roads. The fact that society around you will be in chaos will probably seem more important to you than the fact that your car will start, don't you think?

Re:yes, it's serious

[operagost]

At that point, it would seem pretty frickin' important to me to get the hell out of Dodge. Perhaps in a 1969 Dodge.

Re:yes, it's serious

[morgue-ann]

Nope. Roads will be blocked- cars useless.

Remember the movie Deep Impact? Came out a short time before Y2K and made me seriously consider getting a dirt bike to escape the rioting hordes.

Was talking to some co-workers (all engineers) and we came up with a small diesel-powered dead-simple dirt bike that'll run on fry grease, heating oil (for the NE USA), or kerosene as the ultimate post-apocalyptic vehicle. Should have power-take-off to run well pumps, generators (electrical, not electronic stuff that survives), huge torque & not a lot of power (no clear roads, so no 100MPH cruising anyway) and light enough for an average adult to right if it falls over (hard to do with a diesel).

If the center of gravity is very low, it'll be easier to right even if it is kind of heavy. It needs the torque & traction to run off road, but we aren't jumping dunes, so we don't need the suspension travel of a supercross bike, making the COG requirement easier.

---

Back on topic, Linksys ought to offer a trade-up program for the 1st generation WPC11 cards to get a 3.0 card for 1/2 price or something. That would go a long way towards people believing 802.11b actually works. The antennas on the early cards are TERRIBLE and though the WAP11 is ony 30mW (don't do the boost hack to 100mW- just pushes up sidelobes), and the card is not too powerful or sensitive, other cards using the same chipset have MUCH better ranges. Must be the antenna, eh?

One of the problems with amplifiers is...

[SwedishChef]

That amplifiers amplify everything... including the ambient noise PLUS they also insert a certain amount of noise themselves (LNA stands for "low-noise-amplifier not no-noise-amplifier). So while the signals may be amplified, the noise level might also be amplified enough to negate the effect.

In addition, the FCC has a dba limit on the amount of signal you can have so you cannot just stick power amplifiers on all the devices in the network without incurring some exposure to fines and penalties (for interference).

It makes a lot more sense to design the wireless system to use numerous low-power devices spread around the area so that you can cover just what you need to cover and not simply saturate the area with signal.

wi-fi advice

[yukster]

Say all you wise wi-fi-ers, can someone help me with some advice? My sister has an 802.11b router at one end of her house and a desktop with a wireless card at the other end (it's a long, skinny ranch style). She couldn't get any signal on the computer with the card. She went out and got an access point to set up in the middle of the house, but had trouble getting it to work. She finally got the two boxes talking by putting the AP at the end of 50 ft of cat-5... just inside the room with the desktop. Kinda defeats the purpose of having a wireless setup. She's been planning on figuring out how to make it all work better, but is probably still stepping over the cable on the floor everyday. So, how can she boost the signal? Will an AP between the two work as a repeater? What's the simplest and cheapest way to get this to work? Any sites I can check out that'll help answer these questions (without making my head spin)?

Re:wi-fi advice

[aheath]

I had a similar experience attempting to use a LinkSys 802.11b access point on the rear of second floor of my house to a Linksys 802.11b PCI card on the front of the third floor of my house. Some experimentation with a borrowed laptop showed that the wireless signal propogation was intermittent and of low signal quality. I ended up switching to a pair of Linksys PLEBR10 PowerLine Etherfast 10/100 bridges. The initial configuration software for the PLEBR10 only runs under Windows.

Re:wi-fi advice

[docstrange]

I would suggest finding a yagi or panel style antenna with a wide enough radiation pattern to cover your house and hooking it up pointing so it covers the entire house. I know that you can hook it up to antenna connector on the linksys routers.

Personally I have a 16DB Andrew Panel antenna on one end of my apartment. I am able to go through 3 apartment buildings and get a link with this setup. A Homebrew cantenna may actually work better.

You can get a cable made to convert a SMA conenctor, found on the linksys routers to a N connector, and hook it up to the antenna of your choice.

I know you can buy premade linksys connectors here Their cantenna would probably work to cover your whole house if it is elongated as well; however I have never used their equipment so I would not know for sure.

If you want more info, or ideas contact me. rusty@NOSPAMdestroymicrosoft.org (minus the nospam)

-Rusty

Re:wi-fi advice

[docstrange]

I may want to mention that I also use higher powered wireless cards with 200mW power output manufactured by senao. They have the second best sensitivity on the market. You can buy them at netgate.com
They cost about 100 a pop. You can get a better card from demarctec, but they are like $160 usd. Too expensive for my taste.

anti-nat provisions

[fozzy(pro)]

Well from what i understand Comcast does try to inforce the provison on open access points and multiple computers w/o paying.

My friends on Time Warnmer on the other hand told me that TW installers tell 'em taht a router is the way to go. TimeWarner also doesn't block port 80 or scan it like comcast seems to be doing to me, same subnet as Comcast Name server is how i determined it was them and not some jerk trying to break in(i know you are thinking that). People on VerizonDSL also tell me that Verizon installers also don't care and even recommed using the routers due to the natural firewall.

I hyope ISPs realize charging by the computers is stupid. I mean like when i get an OC3, what a dream come true, they wouldn't charge me for every computer on that.

Also Comcast is dumb, horrible customer service & poor product service and pricing, if DSL becomes available for me as Verizon tells me it will. I'm ditchin comcast for satelite and VerizonDSL.

Have a good New Year All. Comcast you may want to let your customer service reps know taht you are performing upgrades instead of having the guy trounleshoot with me on the phone...exchange modems...send some guy out after sending one to my neigh boor...to tell me they are upgrading and repairing some damage due to heavy rains.

Who cares about NAT?

[Blackknight]

No, really, why?

Why does my ISP care how many computers I hook up to my network? I'm paying for the bandwidth.

If I pay for the bandwidth, it doesn't matter if I'm using 1 computer or 20, the results are the same.

The best thing for an ISP to do is to charge customers for their actual use, just like the electric company. None of these silly no servers, no sharing, etc. clauses.

Would you like it if the phone company said you could only have 1 phone on your line, or the power company said you can't share electricity with your roommates? I didn't think so.

Re:Who cares about NAT?

[John Hasler]

> Would you like it if the phone company said you
> could only have 1 phone on your line,

The phone company did just that for more than half a century. In fact, they did not allow customers to use their own phones at all. We were supposed to rent phones from them.

I agree, though. ISPs should sell metered service and charge by the byte.

Re:Who cares about NAT?

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Why does my ISP care how many computers I hook up to my network? I'm paying for the bandwidth.

No, you're paying for a personal internet connection. If you were paying for bandwidth, it would likely be more expensive and they wouldn't care what you did with the connection. That said, it shouldn't matter what you do, so long as you don't abuse the service, say by downloading stuff 24/7 or having 4 or 5 people using it all the time.

Would you like it if the phone company said you could only have 1 phone on your line, or the power company said you can't share electricity with your roommates? I didn't think so.

Well, it's already been mentioned that the phone company did just what you describe. Your analogy is flawed. Having more than 1 phone on the line doesn't affect the load on the phone company - you can only make 1 phone call at a time. The power company charges you based on usage, and at a higher rate if you exceed a set amount per mnonth, so why should they care?

Re:Who cares about NAT?

[John Hasler]

> No, you're paying for a personal internet
> connection.

But what I want to pay for is bandwidth usage.

> If you were paying for bandwidth, it would
> likely be more expensive...

Why?

> ...and they wouldn't care what you did with the
> connection.

That's the point.

> ...it shouldn't matter what you do, so long as
> you don't abuse the service, say by downloading
> stuff 24/7...

Not likely with one phone line used for personal calls, business, and the computer.

> ...or having 4 or 5 people using it all the
> time.

Two people, and usage that is probably below average.

Re:Who cares about NAT?

[naChoZ]

No, you're paying for a personal internet connection

Absolutely correct. It's a personal internet connection. Some restrict to one cpe per modem, others more. (we allow 5 in Maine.) If you were paying for bandwidth, we'de have to guarantee you a certain amount or something, ya right...

If you were paying for bandwidth, it would likely be more expensive and they wouldn't care what you did with the connection

Pretty close. Specifically, we charge an arm and a leg (well, not compared to a T1 or something) for *dedicated* bandwidth. For that, we have a seperate freq for the modem and the number of customers has to be split exactly evenly so that we can make the guarantee. And no, we really don't care what you do with it (subject to AUP, of course).

Re:Who cares about NAT?

[minard]

it sounds like you work for an ISP, yes? If so, I have a question, and a clarification on some previous posts.

What I think people mean (and what I mean) when they say "charge for bandwidth" is really "charge for bits", that is to say, a charge on the amount of actual usage.

What I, and many others, find incredibly frustrating is having no option other than a flat fee contract, but which then places all kinds of restrictions on what you are allowed to do. Particularly irritating are things like "no servers", "no wireless connection sharing", "no NAT" and "no peer-to-peer".

I understand that bandwidth usage costs money, and it has to be paid for fairly. Nobody is arguing that they should get guaranteed bandwidth and be able to fill the pipe 24/7 for $40 a month. But ISPs should realise that many people want to use their connectivity to do things like run web servers, mail servers, multiple machines and peer-to-peer connections, and don't run large amounts of traffic through the network using such applications.

I dropped my old ISP when it introduced and started enforcing an AUP (it wasn't part of the T&C when I signed up) and moved to a local ISP (still offering a flat fee contract, but without the restrictions). The AUP said no servers, no peer-to-peer. My website (password access, used for communicating with friends and family, takes about 5 hits a month) suddenly stopped working when they blocked port 80, without warning or notification. I suddenly found I couldn't play online games with a friend across the street because they blocked routing to other users of the same ISP. They didn't (and still don't) have a way to do those things and pay for them. They just said "you can't do that on our network".

If ISPs offered a per MB charge service, rather than a flat fee, concerns about open WLAN APs would be pushed from the ISP to the user - every time somebody uses such an unsecured WLAN, the user pays, and the ISP gets the fee.

So can you tell me why not one ISP I can find actually offers such a service? It's what I hear many here requesting, and it doesn't look like it would be negative for the ISP. So what's the problem?

Re:Who cares about NAT?

[Blackknight]

I know it's been done in the past. That doesn't make it right. The analogy is not flawed.

Re:Who cares about NAT?

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Buy what I want to pay for is bandwidth usage.

That is not what you bought. Your options are: business class DSL, various kinds of leased lines, and colocation. Wireless is sometimes an option, but that isn't widely available.

Why?

All your options for paying based on usage are expensive. If you just want a server, colocation and managed hosting are likely your best bet.

Two people, and usage that is probably below average.

So why are you bitching? Your ISP may care, but it can't find out and, unless you make a big stink, they won't care about you beyond your monthly check. In all seriousness, if you care about your ISP and its posturing, then switch. If you can't, then keep your head down and donate to a lobbyist group that represents your interest. That's how Democracy works in the US.

Re:Who cares about NAT?

[naChoZ]

Particularly irritating are things like "no servers", "no wireless connection sharing", "no NAT" and "no peer-to-peer".

The No Servers rule is basically because of the people that do abuse it intentially. No wireless, we don't have that rule specifically, but if we catch you doing something crazy like reselling your service, we'd be putting the smack down on that. (You have to be pretty @#$%ing stupid to get caught anyway.) No NAT, not a rule where I am. The less IP's the better. No peer-to-peer, see servers rule. We've never blocked people from accessing p2p. We used to care about people serving it up, but now one person can't do enough damage to a single node so we only respond to abuse complaints, really.

As far as blocking ports, we don't block many. We snip one or two of the netbios ports, that's about it. You can still use it if you know the persons ip, though.

As far as mail servers, same issue as the other rule about servers, it's the other idiots that killing it for you. Mail servers tend to be the worst simply because I swear it seems like 4 out 5 people that try to run a mail server at home are too retardard to shut off relay and the spam starts a'flowin. Some of them set up fricken proxy servers that relay port 25 wideopen to the world forwarding right to our own mail server and that ends up getting our primary outbound mail server blacklisted.

As far as your final question, I'm not really sure. At the moment, I think it's simply because it's very very difficult. If some company comes out with some slick, seamless box that makes usage monitoring a breeze, then you'll probably see it happen. In house, we're on something like our 3rd attempt at homegrowing something that can do it, and it's still not good enough to be worth a damn. Think of the logistics behind doing that for hundreds of thousands of modems, it's nuts.

Speakeasy

[Just Brew It!]

Yes, Speakeasy has a very enlightened attitude. Their TOS basically says, "just don't abuse our systems or network and we'll leave you alone". When I upgraded to IDSL (unfortunately I am too far from the CO to get ADSL), they sent me a little blurb about how they encourage their customers to run their own servers. They also recently announced a pro-connection sharing policy. As someone else has already commented, they aren't perfect -- for example, their dial-up service really blew chunks when I was on it this past summer, almost making me decide against ordering their IDSL service -- but the IDSL service has been flawless (since September), and I really do believe that they are one of the better ISPs out there right now.

Re:Irresponsible

[John Miles]

If your aircraft transceiver is running on 2.4 GHz, you've got bigger problems than renegade WiFi networks.

Re:Please translate... (Serious)

[Tailhook]

IR to operate a car remotely? Are you entirely braindead?

Suppose something truly bizarre happens to the vehicle that blocks optical signals. Something unexpected and unbelievably rare... ...like snow.

Not true any more

[wotevah]

The new NAT mechanism implemented in the Linux 2.4 kernels tries to use the same source port as the translated packet. I suspect other NAT implementations might be doing the same.

Re:Irresponsible

[rambyter]

Aircraft "transceivers" don't run anywhere near the 2.4Ghz range. VHF transmissions run in the 100-135Mhz range (this is for radio communication and navigation VHF-based navigation instruments) The "transponders" which tell the air traffic control who you are operate around the 1000Mhz area. The ADF navigation equipment operates at between 550 - 1600 Khz (not Mhz!). So, I can't see why you think these frequencies will affect aircraft.

End user responsibility..

[guanno]

I wonder when ISPs are going to stop soft-pedaling the anti-NATing provisions in their terms of service.

The point in having these is largely to emphasize that the end user is responsible for the way the connection is used. If someone does a drive by hack using your insecure WAP, it's your fault directly, not an 'accident', not the ISPs responsibility.

-Guanno

Linksys

[wakeboard]

What I wish linksys would allow in the firmware was a mac address allow list. Right now you can only set mac addresses to block from the WAP. Kinda stupid if u ask me, why not list the mac addresses you want to allow. I know that they can be spoofed, but it makes it just THAT much harder

Re:Linksys

[FrostedWheat]

The WAP11 (at least the one I have) allows just that. You can have access lists or deny lists.

Re:Linksys

[wakeboard]

mine doesnt allow it, I put in my mac address in and I coudnt connect. The guy upstairs had to put my mac address in his identical router so I would stop connecting to his, and I put him mac address in mine. What a pain! John

Where do you live?

[Chanc_Gorkon]

Most folks I know of here in Columbus who have more than one computer use NAT. Mostly Roadrunner. A tech was out and seen my setup and they said nothing. Only thing they said was t would be slower (BS). In facet I think they support you doing things like NAT. Saves them equipment and IP adresses.

What should have been done

[swb]

Since 11Mbps is a tasty target, it's hardly surprising that people will be gunning for maxing out what 802.11 will do.

Maybe the better thing to have done, rather than come out with a single wireless protocol would be to have two; one that would do 50Mbps but at a range of no more than 50m, and another good for 50 miles but at no more than 250Kbps, with a large number of channels.

The former would be great for offices or other places that need high bandwidth, but the distance limitation would have kept it from being so popular as a last-mile. The latter would be awesome for linking buildings or other long-range applications, but a large channel count and low bandwidth would keep people from trying to replace T1s between buildings..

Anti-NAT and SBC Ameritech

[Darth_brooks]

YMMV, but SBC Yahoo / Ameritech doesn't care about NAT. In fact they acknowledge that customers may be connecting more than one system in their customer support materials. The downsides:

-Non windows / mac OS support doesn't exist. They run a don't ask don't tell policy when it comes to multiple PC's, but you need a windows PC for them to do any sort of trouble shooting. (My guess says their support people are reading from a card)

-Installation (from the telco side) is intermittent. Some people I've talked to get setup in a couple weeks. My setup took just shy of three months. To be fair, my order went in just a few days after my area went DSL ready. half of their systems said I could have DSL, the other half didn't. I had two separate orders canceled by the compliance check.

SBC Yahoo may be a good option for your area. sure comparing it to Comcast / Roadrunner is like comparing genital warts to Leporasy (you don't really *want* either, but one's probably a bit easier to live with). It may be wrth investigating. I'm running wireless + two regular boxen and they (officially no less) don't care.

And if you do setup a network remember; http://www.coyotelinux.com, because if you buy a router from best buy, then the terrorists have already won.

Re:UR RF

[mwillems]

Ted,

Mmm.. I wish I could be as much of an optimist. I have recently noticed that 2.4 GHz seems to be getting fuller. My MAME box in the basement sometimes will not see the wireless access point upstairs, and I suspect it's due to QRM - in other words, to the neighbours doing stuff (X.10, phone, etc) in the same frequency range. Power isn't everything (with 10W on 6m I have worked SCotland), but this is line of sight, and surely raising the power from 40 mW to 250 mW will enable more distant neighbours to add to that problem. Bluetooth uses 1 mW by the way, which gives 10m range. Power isn;t "nothing" either!

73
Michael

open air microwave ovens

[Alien54]

RF can get into ANYTHING... as a 1st class FCC license holder, and former Chief Engineer of a 25KW FN station, I know only too well what RF can do. Ask your food, when you take it out of the Microwave oven.

I used to be a radar tech. I used to fondly call the things and open air microwave oven.

Which brings up the usual questions of frequency range and power. One or two probably are no great shakes, but a Special High Intensity Test would be needed if you had a bunch of them

;-)

How the hell do you get rid of the pringles?

[SHEENmaster]

The fundamental design flaw. I would rather eat sand than that crap. My dog seemed to agree.

Re:How the hell do you get rid of the pringles?

[SEWilco]

Commercial access point antennas of the Pringles brand are shipped with disk-shaped packing material inside to prevent the antenna being crushed. The Pringles packing material can be disposed of at many county hazardous waste/recycling facilities. The packing material can also be recycled at home by burying it in a far corner of the yard, covered by a gallon of water, in the light of a full moon.

what about proxy servers?

[bear_phillips]

Would running a proxy server be harder to detect? I run squid and have all of my home pcs connect to the web through it.

Mercedes keys

[shadowj]

Actually, the Mercedes "key" uses both RF and IR. There's an IR transmitter on the business end of the key, and an IR receiver on each door handle of my C230. The receivers are normally used to open and close the windows and sunroof from outside the car by pointing the remote and pushing one of the buttons. I've never had a problem with the RF receiver, so I don't know if it'll unlock the car solely through IR.

Apparently the key also communicates with the ignition system through IR... there's something that looks like an IR receiver in the well where you insert the key.

Are You Daft?

[m1a1]

It is just a repeater. It doesn't broadcast at any greater strength than your typical 802.11b access point, all it does is repeat whatever it picks up, thus increasing the range.

but does it come with a more powerful antenna?

[ubiquitin]

I wonder whether Linksys will include an upgraded antenna in their signal booster kit instead of the little rabbit ears that their current access points come with. For about $100 you can get a 10 decibel gain antenna (for example, see www.telexwireless.com.) Add a 10db gain omni to an amped signal and we may really be able to get some distance out of 802.11b!

What the world needs is fewer karma whores and more good friends.
Go ahead, friend. :) Click that white button and turn it green.

Re:Irresponsible

[mlyle]

Yes, it does. And you can tune in broadcast AM stations on an ADF receiver and see what direction they are relative to you.. that's why they're shown with frequency on aviation charts (as a last-ditch radio navigation fallback).

What an interesting parallel

[stinky wizzleteats]

People put amps on their CB's so that people in other states can hear them cuss. Now you can put an amp on your WAP so that people in other states can surf your pr0n!

NAT

[Schitsofrantic]

I wonder when ISPs are going to stop soft-pedaling the anti-NATing provisions in their terms of service.

The ISP I work for offers wireless internet service. When we go on an install, we install NAT32 on the customers computer for them. It's much easier for the customer if they have any other computers on the network, and it's easier for us because they aren't calling us every other day when they start messing with settings they don't know about.

Re:Anti-NAT

[itzdandy]

The ONLY reason to say that a user can't use NAT or any other ICS system is because they cant afford for a user to use up their full pipe. this means 1 of two things.

1)they are overselling their service. They sell X amount of bandwidth and only have X amount avail.
2)they are selling bandwidth off of a fractional or band on demand type service where they are charged per GB they use, the more the customer uses, the higher their cost.

if #1 is the case, get a new ISP if you can, this is crap, you should get what you pay for, and they say you get X bandwidth, you can use X bandwidth.

if #2, this is legitamate but also the cost and risk of doing business. You should be selling tiered access if you concerned with this, and you should be selling the bandwidth as if the customer were going to use evry drop and make sure you have some profit or at least break even, then you make more if they use less and you business is not at risk.

Re:standard connector

[minard]

they're not allowed to. FCC regulations specify that they use a non-standard antenna connector. It's a prerequisite to getting FCC certification.

The logic goes that you have to certify with a known antenna, so if you use standard connectors anybody could hook up a different antenna and make the device noncompliant...

and yes, it sounds screwy to me too, but those are the rules

good reference site?

[PeePeeSee]

Anyone have a good link to a site that can break down how some of the most common used radio technology works? Like good explinations of how all the ideas like the spectrum work and all the terminology and perhaps how antenna's(different kinds) work?

I still want the linux drivers for my wmp11 card !

[overlord]

HI,

This people of Linksys, sold a me a WMPC11 card
version v2.7 who was very diferent from the older
version of this card. There are not linux drivers,
beware of this company.

OverLord

Anti-WAP = (Can be) More Profitable

[oneiros27]

As someone who has worked for an ISP, I can tell you that the majority of the traffic comes from a minority of the customers. I haven't worked for an ISP that's had DSL service, and so, I see it from the point of view of dial up. In fact, I'm going to assume that the AUPs in question stem from dialup related problems.

You see, the issue is that phone lines cost money. For us, it was costing us almost $70/month, [business lines are more expensive than residential lines, and well, they were PRIs], plus the cost of hardware (modems, servers) and other costs (staffing, office space, internet connection). The only way to make a profit off of modems is to NOT have someone sitting on 'em 24hrs a day.

Although we didn't get picky when a whole family was using their connection, we would start asking questions when someone was on more than 500hrs in a month (as well, we expect people to sleep once in a while). Sometimes, you get more than one person in the house who's an addict, and they're working different shifts... normally, it's someone who has their mail program set to check every 5 minutes, and they've got dial-on-demand set up.

So, to make up for this, and so you didn't have to completely kick people out, there were normally additional tiers of service. Many times, they were just listed as 'business' and 'residential', or they might have some other name for an always-on-connection, or where it was okay to be sharing out the line -- because the more computers using the line, the more likely it was to be up all the time.

Now, with DSL, the model has completely changed, so that doesn't entirely fit, but have the ISPs changed their AUP? Doubtful. And if they did, they'd probably have to have one for broadband connections, and one for dialup, and then you've got to have seperate tracking of users, etc. Of course, your bottleneck problem now isn't busy modems, but your connection to the internet -- so people downloading every mp3 they can find, divx movies, etc, start cutting into your bottom line. [And well, you've either got to lose money on each individual that's doing it, or get rid of 'em so they don't adversely affect every other customer.]

Oh, and for those wondering...I am a speakeasy customer...only outage I've had was when they changed my IP address. [and they even called me the day before to remind me it was going to be happening... but I wasn't at home, and forgot to write down my new IP, and I had it saved in e-mail, so I had to go to the local library the next day, and check my mail from there to get my new IP]

Re:Anti-NAT

[Charcharodon]

Cool stuff if you ask me. Now I can link a couple of friends houses together that were just out of reach before. If an ISP doesn't like it too bad. I paid for my connection, and if I max it out 24/7 then they shouldn't have advertised as an unlimited internet service. Besides I'm stingy anyway. I have no plans on sharing it out. I've got to little upload bandwidth as it is.(ADSL)

So when will it be available?

[kallen3]

This amp was discussed over at netstumbler.com. There it was being said that Linksys was expecting FCC approval beginning of December and available soon after. So here it is the end of the month and it is still "available soon"

Re:So when will it be available?

[kallen3]

The power of posting, within hours of posting this message it became available for purchase. I should have asked this sooner

Mating turtles?

[RobK]

Does anyone else think they look like mating turtles?

http://www.linksys.com/splash/wsb24_splash.asp

Daisy Chain!!!!

[beest]

What's to prevent a certain (possibly slighlty unethical) person from breaking a few FCC violations & double dipping on a few of these babies....

Example of microwave propagation:

[mwillems]

Just read a web site about a ham "working 500kms on 3cms with 2.5W on Rain Scatter". That is 500 kms' not the 50 km I was talking about. Rain scatter!!

See http://www.neoamateur.org/

Mike va3mvw

Signal to noise vs. receiver sensitivity

[Andy Dodd]

What you're ignoring here is that the receiver has a limit on its sensitivity - So that even if it is receiving a signal with a good SNR, if that signal is too weak, it will be below the noise floor of the receiver itself.

Adding a preamp boosts that signal. Yes, it amplifies the noise, but it will bring the signal above the receivers' internal noise floor. The most important factor in the noise performance of a receiver is the noise figure of the very first gain/loss stage after the receive antenna. Put in a low-noise gain stage here and the NF of the entire system drops. (This is why satellite receivers have a preamp at the dish, not at the receiver at the other end of the coax, and why broadcast TV amps should be at the antenna, BEFORE the coax run)

WLAN receivers (especially budget ones like Linksys, D-Link, and almost any mainstream Prism2/2.5/3 implementation) usually don't have the best receive sensitivity because a good preamp at 2.4 GHz costs $$$. This preamp is a cheap way around that problem.

If you want a good example of why a preamp will help you - Use Kismet (a passive receive-only monitor) with:
a) A Prism-based card
b) An Orinoco card
c) A Cisco card

You'll notice that given almost identical antenna designs and identical signals at the receive location, the Prism-based card has horrible receive sensitivity, the Orinoco is INCREDIBLY good (compared to the Prism), and the Cisco is even better. (Not as much improvement as Orinoco vs. Prism, but still noticeable)

Note: High-end Prism-based cards like the Demarctech ReliaWave are exceptions. The Reliawave beats Orinocos and even Ciscos I believe.

So you can get a LOT of receive performance improvement with just a transmit power amp/receive preamp on one end. Especially when the receiver in the AP isn't particularly hot. (I think most APs are better than cards, but at the card end, you'll see a lot more benefits from adding a preamp to a Prism based card than to an Orinoco or Cisco card, since the Prism has the worst receiver and as I mentioned before, the very first gain stage is the most important.)

Full-duplex? Nope

[Andy Dodd]

802.11 is not full-duplex.

To the user, it may appear full-duplex because it switches between transmit/receive extremely quickly, but it's not full-duplex, just like 10 or 100baseT on a shared hub is not full duplex but without extensive benchmarking in a high-load situation, the user can't tell that it isn't FDX.

Do a search for N9ZIA - The guy is a bit nuts, but has done a LOT of 802.11 hacking, including some major mods including bidirectional amp ideas for Proxim's 802.11 precursor products. (Not 802.11, but very similar)

FCC max

[Andy Dodd]

I haven't seen any specs, but I have a feeling this doesn't emit at the FCC max.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if it's not anywhere close to the power output of some of the $300-400 range of bidirectional amps - I can't find specs on Linksys' website, but I wouldn't be surprised if this only boosted the signal to 100-200 mW. Legal limit into an isotropic antenna (or is it a dipole?) is 1W.

Also, FCC regs on the EIRP are a bit odd - There isn't an exact fixed limit on EIRP, i.e. for every 3 dB of antenna gain you add, you don't have to drop transmit power by 3 dB - It's only 1 or 2 dB or power you're required to drop.

http://www.qsl.net/n9zia/wireless/page12.html has specific info.

+30 dBm max output at the product's connector
+36 dBm max EIRP for multipoint connections
For fixed point-to-point connections, the PEP of the transmitter must be reduced 1 dBm for every 3 dB of antenna gain beyond 6 dB.

i.e. with a 6 dB antenna, you may run 30 dBm (1W) output power, for an EIRP of 36 dBm. With a 9 dB antenna, you must drop to 29 dBm output, for an EIRP of 38.

At 20 dBm output (100 mW), you may run 36 dB of gain
At 23 dBm output (200 mW), you may run 33 dB of gain

If the max output of this amp is only 20-23 dBm as I suspect, then not even the best Pringles antenna won't be able to push it beyond the legal limit. Only a large high-quality dish will have a chance. (33 dBi is a LOT of gain. The largest parabolic antenna at http://www.fab-corp.com/ only has 24 dBi of gain)

He isn't

[Andy Dodd]

Why don't I ever have mod points when I need them?

The device, while so far light on specs, is marketed as an amplifier, not as a repeater. From Linksys' product page - "The Linksys Wireless Signal Booster piggybacks onto your Linksys Wireless Access Point (or Wireless Access Point Router)"

Repeaters don't "Piggyback" on the AP. They're placed elsewhere.

Also, if you look at the picture, esp. the enlarged one on buy.com's product page, you'll see that the booster is stacked on top of an AP in the pictures - WITH COAX RUNNING FROM THE AP TO THE AMP. Also confirmed on Linksys' product page - "To install, just stack the Wireless Signal Booster on your Access Point, move the antennas to the Booster, and attach the Booster's twin cables to the Access Point -- no drivers or modifications to your setup are necessary."

No comparison to 802.11

[Andy Dodd]

a) 2.5W = 2.5 times the FCC legal limit for 802.11

Also, thy were probably using a very high-gain antenna on top of that 2.5W of transmit.

Last but not least - They were almost surely using CW (or *MAYBE* PSK31) - Which have bandwidths measured in *hertz* not megahertz.

The closest comparison to this would be taking a magnetron from a microwave, putting it into a feedhorn, and using that to communicate.

(Actually, hams DO things like this - Use a PLL to clean up the magnetron's signal, and then use it with a big dish for EME (Earth-Moon-Earth) work)

Speakeasy is an excellent company

[love2hateMS]

Read the subject. I have been delighted with Speakeasy since I signed with them. Yes, you pay more. You can use your bandwidth however you want (including running servers). You also get fantastic tech support (including a Linux friendly attitude).

I absolutely love them! I've literally been recommending them to everyone I know. I've never seen a company, ever, with such fantastic customer service.

Obligatory disclaimer: I don't work for them.

Let's get the facts right ...

[WayTooOldForThis]

True to form, Slashdotters have built a huge thread without anyone getting the facts right about this so-called "amp."

Note that Linksys is careful not to even call this product an amplifier. It's a "signal booster."

The WSB24 does not amplify the transmit signal much, if at all. The FCC test reports show its peak output at between 17.9 and 20.5 dBm, not much more that the access points and routers it sits on. 20 dBm = 100 mW, or 10 percent of the FCC max at the antenna connector.

Linksys never claimed the transmitted signal would be amplified. Its own published specs state only a nominal 14 dBm output level. (This could be conservative advertising; more likely it's because Linksys' marketing department doesn't know a dBm from a dB.)

Rather, the benefits of the unit are supposed to come by amplifying the received signals.

See this thread in the DSLR Linksys forum, which includes links to the FCC test data.

Last Post!

[alpg]

Alan E. Davis: Some files at llug.sep.bnl.gov/pub/debian/Incoming are
stamped on 10 January 1998. As I write, nowhere on Earth is it now 10 January.

Craig Sanders: That just proves how advanced debian is, doesn't it :-)
-- debian-devel

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Last Post!

[alpg]

Take your dying with some seriousness, however. Laughing on the way to
your execution is not generally understood by less advanced life forms,
and they'll call you crazy.
-- "Messiah's Handbook: Reminders for the Advanced Soul"

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