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Implementing WiFi in the Real World
John Jorsett writes "Seduced by the siren song of wireless access throughout the home, many a user has experienced the discrepancy between the manufacturer's advertised claims (150 feet indoors, 300 outside) and real-world implementation (the living room and upstairs bedroom may as well be on different continents). In steely-eyed determination to exercise his inalienable right to network access anywhere on his property, MSN author Paul Boutin hired a Wi-Fi engineer to help him bathe his property in 802.11 waves, using only mass-market consumer hardware."
This whole time I've been using my Airport network in the fake, alternate-universe world? Freaky.
Vonal Declosion
I don't have internet either. Thanks, Paul, I just looked up your address. Who's up for some wardriving?
Never argue with an idiot, he'll just lower you to his level and beat you with experience.
This is how to do it in 3 steps:
1)Buy a Wireless access point
2) Plug it into a network.
3) Visit slashdot to see how you should have done it.
There is no god
Later that month Mr. Boutin's beloved cat, Fluffy, was taken to the vet after sprouting a second tail.
"It's not all that concerning, no more than this third ear I've grown," said Mr. Boutin of his cat's irregularities.
Yeah well, the cartoon referenced in the article does not do justice to OS X. I am running a couple of websites on OS X with one running on a little old G3 iMac that now has around 80 days of uptime. I never have to touch the thing and it is solid and stable as a rock.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
MSN author Paul Boutin decides apple makes the best products
MSN author Paul Boutin hired a Wi-Fi engineer
Even my mom was able to setup her 802.11b card to use my access card. Are Microsoft employees that daft ?
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Getting an engineer to come and help? A few Pringles cans would have been a heck of a lot cheaper. Geez, those Microsoft guys, always reinventing the wheel.
A Slate article advocating the purchase of AirPort Extreme??
How long until this guy gets 86'ed?
In the meantime, I think he's got a great point. We use Airports in and around our department at my university because a) educational discount and b) easily extendable whenever a new hall would like to be added to the network of base stations.
Mordor...a magical, mythical land where women are more rare than dragons--but where every man would rather find a dragon
A pispoor troll. I know you can do better.
Next time I'll bring my coffee to his house to warm it up in the morning.
"The only product that met our needs was Apple's AirPort Extreme base station." "There's only one major caveat on the AirPort: You'll need a Mac to configure it."
Ahh, another blatently subliminal attempt to get me to buy an Apple, eh? (Still not taking the hook.) Fwiw, I live in a 80 unit condo that supplies us with free wireless as part of the association fee, I get about 14 kb/s throughput on ftp downloads. Great while relaxing on the beach with a laptop, as well as using it for my home pc.
--Mike--
The first time you dispose of a tedious backlog of e-mail while kicking back in your favorite lawn chair...
Just make sure that your kids don't decide to COWABUNGA all over you and your pricey laptop...
never bring a twinkie to a food fight.
This jump in logic baffles me. Those aren't exactly difficult standards to meet. Wouldn't any old Linksys wifi router suffice for mass-market? Why exactly would it be difficult to have multiple instances of the "same model"? The author doesn't jutsify the choice or even explain any of the differences between Apple's product or anyone elses.
i know this will be beaten to death, but it really is great to be able to cancel your DSL service after a neighbor leaves his wifi unencrypted.
when my phone service was dropped, i threw a d-link access point on the back fence and ran a 50' ethernet cable in through the back window. thanks Laura'sP4! i appreciate your having broadband and a linsys router!
and thanks mr. boutin for not mentioning WEP encryption!
go get it
Everytime I have grabbed my checkbook, and gotten ready to head out for wireless...the articles say "in a few months_____________", the new standard, the longer range, etc. is going to come out, and render my purchase just foolish, and I will be so embarassed I didn't wait.
.g standard is ratified, I'm sure one WAP for only $199 would cover his whole house, and garage and his patio too.
Gee - If he had waited until "this summer" when the new
But, the one coming out after that....
to help him bathe his property in 802.11 waves
How many hits per second during a typical slashdotting session again ? Poor Paul Bouttin must have received a good dose of radiation by now.
Paul, the iodine pills are in your left drawer. Good luck buddy !
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
He's a Slate author. Slate's domain is simply under MSN.
I'm completely unwilling to come over to his house and configure his AirPort Extreme until he works on that attitude. Looking askance at hardware/software that just works: let him use solutions through his corporate overlord.
Wait a second... he writes for MSN and has to hire a Wi-Fi engineer to help him bathe his property in 802.11 waves?!!!
There are much cheaper bases and access points that will accomplish this for you (linksys, dlink) and they dont require you to find someone with a mac (surprisingly I dont know someone with a mac laptop). His solution of 'it doesnt reach? spend $200 more!' isnt very adequate for a typical home user
I've got an extreme near the front of the house and an old graphite in the bedroom.
The nice option about the airport is it will let more than one airport act as the same network - so when I walk from the back to the front of my house, I'm not switching from network 1 to network 2. I know it says it in the article but it's nice to see in action.
FWIW, bathroom tiles are bad for range and for some reason, I have trouble connecting one room away with my tibook unless it is turned just right.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
...I really think Mom and Pop are going to find it SO easy to get an Apple and set up their Airport! Especially if it's broadcasting to PCs
instead of Macs!
Really though, why on earth would anybody waste their time doing this? Sure the Airport is good, BUT spend less time, buy a Linksys or a DLink or a Cisco or something, plug it in, plug some wireless cards into the computers, turn it on, and let the wireless router and software do the rest!
Man.. I wonder if this guy gets paid more than I do! *grin*
I currently sport equipment capable of 1W eirp, also I have directional equipment capable of 4W eirp.
I paid:
90$ for 1 Engenius CD-2511-PLUS-EXT2 card, 23dB (200mW). (is prism 2.5? uses hostap driver nicely)
17.50$ for 1 MMCX to N-Male pigtail
90$ for a 5 foot long dark grey thin 12dBi omni
---
197.50$ for the following config
+ (imagine adding a 200-400$ mini-box m100 or something similarly powerful)
+ 50$ - 4W backfire antenna - gets pretty much anything on the skyline. Some buildings have over 50-100 antennas on them.
This is by far more 'extreme' - I catch over 20 networks locally, and over 60 on my skyline in various directions.
The only thing I have to say is that Engenius is releasing a 2.4ghz/5ghz combo card with similar MMCX connectors and power. Similar ideas will resurface at that time.
The article says that to configure an Airport, you need a Mac.
Really?
Every firewall/router I have used, including the ones that have 802.11b features, are configured using any web browser. Is it really true that Apple did something different, which requires a Mac?
If so: I suggest you buy a Netgear instead.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
"Paul Boutin hired a Wi-Fi engineer to help him bathe"
taking things out of context is always more fun than adding insightful comments
YOU SUCK BALLS!
Marginal article for Mac users, but the bigger question is what's it like out there for PC users, especially Linux driver support? I've got a mix of Windows and Linux boxes at home, and am fearful that WiFi cards aren't going to have much support yet in the Linux platforms.
"Most important, it's the only home consumer base that flaunts its support for the Wireless Distribution System, which knits multiple access points together to act as a single network. An AirPort base plugged into the DSL or cable modem can bridge to up to four additional AirPorts, nearly doubling the network's wireless reach in four directions at once. Even better, the method lets you put an AirPort right in the room with you, rather than trying to beam the connection through a wall. This approach vastly reduces the amount of squirming in your seat required before your laptop will pick up enough signal from the other room."
Total BS. If this guy was a real expert, he'd know you could also buy the Intel 2011 access point (and I'm sure there's others out there with the same feature set). It can also act as a repeater (scroll down on that link a little). I know because I have two in my house, and one repeats the signal to the back half of the house. They work phenomenally.
The Intel may be more expensive (~$500), but I can guarantee it covers more area. The antennas are about 8 inches each (diversity!), and I can actually get my whole house on one of them (why'd I get two? optimal coverage for multiple people...plus it's cool!).
$650 so I can surf from poolside? I'll take a 75 ft. patch cord and a window that is open 1/2 inch, thank you very much. No new NIC required, either. And don't even get me started on Wi-Fi security.
This article really illustrates how far Wi-Fi has to go before it's widely and *easily* adopted by consumers.
There are 01 kinds of cars in the world. The General Lee, and everything else.
Hrm. I have the Us Robotoics 8022, and it works fine for me on all levels of my house, including outside.
If I get a cheap wireless pci card and throw that in an already networked machine would I be able to connect to the net through that with a wireless pcmcia card in my laptop?
You don't need a Mac to configure these things these tools work fine on all platforms with a JVM.
Wait, this is an MICROSOFT guy doing an APPLE ad? Did hell freeze over while I wasn't looking?
Hmm... the D-Link 900 does wireless repeating too and costs about $70 (according to pricewatch.com). I would bet that at least one of LinkSys, Netgear, SMC and Siemens has one too.
And what stoopid trade-off he's proposing. Sure, Airport stations can be both AP's and bridges. But, as he notes...
There's only one major caveat on the AirPort: You'll need a Mac to configure it. Since you'll only need to do this once, though, it's not a big problem. Only a small percentage of us own an Apple computer, but we all know someone who does and never stops reminding us. Not only will your Mac Buddy come over and set up your AirPorts, he'll be hurt if you don't let him. Go ahead, ask him and see.
WTF?! What kind of trade-off is this for a PC owner? Thanks, Paul, you saved me from (gasp!) buying two kinds of hardware, but now I have to call my smug "Mac Buddy" over every time I want to manage it. AND, this smug Mac Buddy of mine has administrative rights on my LAN. I better stop calling him smug.
Airport is great, Macs are great, but this is a horrible solution for the mission he set up for himself: Propose the dead-simplest full-coverage wireless home network for your average (i.e. Windows-using) person.
...manufacturer's advertised claims (150 feet indoors, 300 outside) and real-world implementation (the living room and upstairs bedroom may as well be on different continents)
Yeah you can't get this stuff to work from one room to the next, but the punk-ass kid down the street has no problem "owning" all 802.11-connected machines inside your house from a block away... easily busting the sad-excuse-for-encryption that these devices offer.
All the nodes on my WiFi network talk in ad-hoc mode, using Mobile Mesh for routing (including the Zaurus). Traffic is then encrypted with IPSec and authenticated against my LDAP server.
As a result as long as I am in range of any one of my nodes (not a difficult thing in this house) I get a good signal - the cloud covers most of the garden too. And all without dropping a bundle on network engineers, antennas, amplifers or anything else.
But then again what do you expect of someone who works for MSN? Routing? Isn't that the thing you do with some kind of workmans tool?
Beep beep.
The Airport is still overpriced and requires a Mac to configure. For a single vendor and multi-platform solution, I would have gone with the D-Link DWL-800AP+ which can be set to access point or repeater mode. At $75 each, populating the house with them should be affordable.
I've found that among my technically-not-so-savvy friends, family, and coworkers, the real misunderstanding about wireless networks is that they confuse them with wireless *Internet*.
Every time my boss goes out of town, she asks me to make sure that her Airport works correctly so she can get on the Internet from her hotel. And everytime, I have to explain to her that she has a wireless network card, not a wireless Internet card.
Mad Software: Rantings on Developing So
D-Link makes the WAP-900+ access point. Cool thing about it is that it can be used as a wireless repeater. I bought one on sale for 69 bucks a few weeks ago. Two of these and a D-Link DI-614+ wireless router ($49 bucks after rebate). would have done the same thing he did for less then the cost of one Airport. Plus you don't need an Apple computer to configure it (any web browser will do).
This explain's alot. ANYONE with any technical skill can set up a WiFi net to completely cover their property. It's not difficult except for those that have low IQ when it comes to technical things like engineering or computers.
Hell I spent Tons less than he did, got the same result, 100% coverage.. AND has better security than he does.
It's just another example of someone who is rich spending money like water... no need to even pay attention to it. Now when he actually become innovative, Let me know.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I bet people have the best results in wood framed, drywalled houses. Does anyone know if lead paint and pressed steel fabrication has a negative effect on wi fi signals?
TallGreen CMS hosting
Buy 200 more APs and place them every 5 feet in your house. And it'll only cost you $50,000. Did an ENGINEER really have to come up with this solution??
This is a pretty worthless article... how did it make it on /.?
You da man.
Right, get someone who has a Apple to setup the stuff. I know of no one who has an Apple! You should of chosen another brand!
Ok, so the wireless network, 802.11b or whatever won't do what it is supposed to, go all around your little house. Back when we all had Ham licenses, we had 1000 watt maximums, and could go all around the world. I had only 30 watts, and my signal went to Europe from the Southeastern USA. Seems like this is like the CB'ers problem, only 5 watts. How about pumping your wireless network up to 100 watts, and then you'll go all over the house, yard, etc.
Use a password, and also put some boxes of colored chalk out front for those a go'in warchalking. Have the neighborhood kids set up a Kool Aid stand out there, too, so someone will make some spending money off this.
is the author implementing wireless in the wrong way?
:) i also find it healthier to stand up and walk to my computer room.
i reckon most of the time when you go outside your house, you want to do something outdoor, not doing things with computer, again. if you're watching tv in the lounge, you want to lazz around, not handling another devide bigger than a remote control
admittedly wireless can be quite useful if you want to reduce wiring between stationary PCs at home, or for an office building.
here's my theory on this:
The guy is trying to imply that Apple sucks without actually saying it... every response to this article has been 'why not just go buy xxx PC product and be done with it?'
1) buying multiple airports for $200+ for most people is rediculous... "If the AirPort doesn't reach everywhere you need it to, it's time to start filling in the dead zones with additional AirPorts." I COULD BUILD A DAMN BEOWULF CLUSTER FOR THAT!!
2) to go find a mac just to set it up is retarded, i personally don't know anyone with a mac, let alone someone that will haul the thing over to give me a hand...
3) MSN _has_ to have editors that would have yanked the article if they didn't already know it was actually against apple.
4) even the comic he linked to shows a mac crashing.
5) they talk about how unrealiable the airport is ("Jazzed on too much caffeine, we did this to ourselves and had to poke at the AirPorts' factory reset buttons with a paper clip to start over from scratch.")
yea, another subliminal hit from microsoft..
to find this article very useful
TallGreen CMS hosting
I first set up my home wireless network with a SMC2632W PC Card adapter. It quickly became obvious that one access point (SMC2655W) wasn't going to cover my 2100 square foot house, so I set up one access point in my study at the front of the house and another in the laundry room at the rear.
Flash forward a year or so, and my employer issued me a spiffy new ThinkPad T30 with an integrated (MiniPCI actually) Cisco Aironet 350 adapter. This adapter uses an antenna that's actually built into the laptop, and what a difference!
There's no question that I could get by with a single access point now. I see 67% signal strength when the adapter is associated with the access point at the other end of the house -- 70 feet away, through four or five walls. In fact, I had a terrible time getting Windows XP to associate with my secured network; it kept associating the adapter with my neighbors unsecured network. (I've promised myself that I'll tell them about this if they ever kill the dandelions in their yard.)
This really isn't surprising when you consider that the PCMCIA adapter has to cram its antenna into the small portion of the card that sticks out of the laptop, while the integrated adapter gets to use an antenna that runs throughout the laptop.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
It could be the reason that it takes 3 Airports is suboptimal use, rather than just buying a single Linksys WAP and not having any problems.
An interesting view from the Airport knowledge article that was pointed too was they all had to be on the same channel... Frankly, I'd rather run some wire, and use seperate channels to get my 3 or 4 (depending on if you want no overlap or just a little) channels, letting more bandwidth through
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
Here's a Java-based configurator for the Apple AirPort Base Station and Lucent RG-1000 wireless access points. It should run on any platform with a Java 1.2-compliant runtime environment installed, permitting the configuration of a base station from any host. The download for Unix/Windows consists of a zip file containing the software and HTML help file. The runnable is supplied as a "jar" file; run this in the usual way (double-clickable in Windows if using Sun's JRE 1.2 or higher runtime environment ; from command line in Unix). The download for the Macintosh expands into a folder containing a double-clickable application plus the help file; a download containing two necessary Java libraries from Sun is also available (see notes below).
does anyone else find it peculiar that an MSN writer is going on about an Apple product?
The 'duck' antennas that come on Linksys APs are 2.2dBi - they pretty much radiate in a flattened bubble shape.
... think of its pattern as more of a fluffy pancake shape rather than the slightly flattened ball pattern you get with a low gain duck.
If you replace the 2.2 dBi duck with an external 8.2dB omnidirectional antenna you'll have something roughly twice as tall that will put four times as much energy where you need it
I live in an old house with solid wood doors. My desktop provides an adhoc network for my laptop in my room. If either my bedroom door or the office door is open it works with a duck, if they're both closed I get no signal. I had a 17dB panel and the appropriate cable - using this put 32x the energy where I needed it and I get solid connections with both doors closed.
I previously lived in a newer split level. The AP was at one end of the house in the basement, my room was all the way at the other end on the second floor. A 30mw Linksys with a duck was just useless, but adding a 12dB Cushcraft 90 degree sector gave excellent service all over the house.
I am very easy to get along with, but I don't have time to waste being nice to people who are being stupid. -Theo
Does this help?
Now, antennas of various design can give you different shapes. If you are trying to fill an area that is all roughly on the same elevation, use a Higher gain (aroung 8-10db) omnidirectional antenna. If you are setting an access point up in one corner of the property, buy a directional antenna to fill in only the areas you are trying to cover.
In this way you are effectively boosting the output of the equipment without introducing extra noise, or bringing the FCC to your door.
The hard part is interfacing the access point to the external antennas. The back of my linksys's have a reverse-TNC connector. Most aftermarket antennas use the ham-radio style N-type connectors. After a bit of scouring I found an outfit that actually sells the pigtail I needed.
The antennas were from an outfit in Canada called "Superpass". They have a great website with the radiation patterns, but their market is someone buying a messload at a time. I forget where I got the pigtail, but I could probably find it again if asked.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
How do you know that that Wi-Fi engineer isn't a bombshell blond geek girl? I mean, why else would he want the laptop by the pool? To hookup his webcam. Duh.
Cheap APs have 100 mW or less, and very bad antennas (less de 1 dBi). Nevertheless, a 100 mW card plus a short 2 dBi omni antenna is enough to cover a medium-to-big flat, assuming that the stations' antennas are still internal.
By the way, the Apple Base Station Antena is crap, it only gives good coverage if you have all the stations' antennas at the same level/height, otherwise better to turn the base station on its side or hang it in the wall.
sgis ddo ekil t'nod i
See Tom's Hardware for an article on D-Link's Repeating WAP.
Adding an external antenna to your notebook's WiFi card helps too. This one works well for me and it's not too obtrusive. The antennas on my APs were good enough for my purposes so I left them alone.
BTW, if anyone has an ORiNOCO WiFi card and is wonder why it works great under Linux but craps out periodically on WinXP SP1, this Microsoft patch is likely the culprit. If you stop the Wireless Zero Configuration service after you boot up it'll work around the problem, but it's best to not install the patch in the first place, at least until the Lucent/Agere refugees working at Proxim release new firmware/drivers that are Windows brain damage compliant.
(Hint for Proxim: release Linux drivers for your 802.11a/b/g cards and put external antenna connectors on them and I'll upgrade. Otherwise, I'm more than happy to save my money with cheap 802.11b gear.)
They spent, what? $600.00? You could have done this all with a d-link 614+ router for $79.99 and two DWL-900AP+ Access Points (set in Wireless Repeater mode) for $79.99 each. Sure, I wouldn't be 802.11g, but with the d-links you can still get 22mbps (faster then your cable/dsl line by a lot) and you only paid $240.00 to set yours up.
Of course, D-Link makes just about the only inexpensive router that will work as a Wireless Repeater. I expect other companies to follow suit though.
looks like you've been /. as the webserver isn't responding. Maybe you should have used W2K+IIS instead of OS X.
Dude, you're gettin a dell!
Assuming you can still get Pringles after the US plant was detroyed by a tornado last month!!
We might run out of stock soon!!!
The article actually expresses some of my frustrations about Wi-fi. I have been using it in an old building in an office environment. I used to use it in Japan where I worked for a number of years. Now, I'm using it on a project here in the states.
/. crowd about how to deal with non-optimal environments rather than a bunch of lame Apple/Microsoft/MSN jokes. Whatever. They really weren't that funny. The troll about /. killing off humanity because people just use cock rings, anal beads, and online porn instead of real sexual contact was actually much funnier than most of the other worn out gags. And that is saying something, because as trolls go, it was pretty lame. Besides, I find that cock rings really don't help me, or my partners. Just a waste of money, like wi-fi. The anal beads are great, though.
/., I've decided to devote myself to fisting my bottom in an attempt to show that users of opensource are just as capable of living the "gay" lifestyle as users of Apples are. My wife won't mind. I give her a little money to run the house and I let her screw the mailman, and she ignores the shitstains on my sleeves. It works for me.
We faced either thousands in wiring costs to put drops in each room for Cat-5, or an alternative "cheaper" whay to do it. Wireless won out, despite my push to go for wired. Penny wise and pound foolish as things turned out. The overhead costs involved with even enterprise gear just make it a big hassle.
The building I'm in right now is an old converted townhouse. It is built like a fricking bomb shelter with 12" walls in places. None of this gay little cubicle shit. Doors on offices and everything. Helping all of this is the plaster and lathe and metal chicken-wire type stuff inside the walls (vintage 1920's, I'm guessing) that kills wireless signals dead.
We ended up stringing some wire through the center of the building and using WAPs at the outlying points to extend the LAN as needed. Technically we do not have a wireless lan, I guess -- we have a wired LAN extended by wi-fi.
The actual article was thin on some tips on placing WAPs or dealing with non-cube farm environments. I think that would have been better than just some generic garbage that won't really help the average consumer make do if he runs into some non-optimal conditions. I knew in advance that the stated claims for distance were horseshit, as in an actual, non-McMansion (i.e. slum-of-the-future) house that was actually built to last, the materials would cause significant degradation of signals. Joe Sixpack might not know better.
I would have liked to seen more comments from the
Instead of reading
Until Richard Stallman dissolves into a pile of stinking shit, slap my ass and call me hirsute,
BJH
Google results 1-10 of about 65,400,000 for b. Search took 0.04 seconds.
The first and third sentences contradict each other: Each node in the ad-hock network must REMEMBER the connectivity of ALL THE OTHER nodes of the network. If the ad-hoc network becomes widespread (i.e. you do an open network, and your neighbor does, and his neighbor does, all across the planet) you run out of RAM.
(The protocol DOES cut down TRAFFIC to a level that may scale by reducing the frequency of transmission of packets containing routing information as they get more hops away from the nodes in question.)
This won't be an issue if your nodes are configured to only participate in your local network. It becomes an issue when they are not so limited. This includes the case where a particular "local network" is the default configuration for commercial equipment.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Most important, it's the only home consumer base that flaunts its support for the Wireless Distribution System, which knits multiple access points together to act as a single network.
Not true. D-Link sells a wireless access point that can act as a repeater. I think other vendors do, too. And their access points are web configurable.
There's only one major caveat on the AirPort: You'll need a Mac to configure it.
Not true either. There are third party utilities for configuring the AirPort from other operating systems, e.g., here.
MSN author Paul Boutin hired a Wi-Fi engineer to help him bathe his property in 802.11 waves,
Ah, MSN author. Never mind, that explains everything.
You may never need an antenna, but it's better to have the option
Hmm everyone has covered the whole "how practical can it be if you need a Mac to config it, and "MS employee recommends Mac product?" but why did this guy say you'd probably never use the antenna connector on the back? That would extend your range incredibly with the right antenna.. then you wouldn't need to spend all that $$ on more APs.
There is a repeater that retransmits the wifi signal of a base station. I found it for $71 with a $10 rebate at BestBuy. Unfortunately it wouldn't work with my Ambicom base station. Take a look at:
http://www.dlink.com/products/wireless/dwl800ap+/
Has anyone had luck with this product?
A base station and 2 or 4 of these should cover the Hamptons mansion.
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
It would seem like you could probably get a lot more distance off of Wi-Fi stuff if you just cut away some of the plastic casing covering the antennas.
I've noticed that a lot of the usb style wireless adapters are basically something the size of an egg stuck in a plastic container the size of a kleenex box. All that plastic can't be good for the reception.
Crudely, the higher the better.
If you buy an AP with an external antenna connector you can buy or build antennas with a wide range of transmission patterns.
If you really want to get geeky, putting conductive objects near the antenna can do useful things (or make things worse). Your friendly neighborhood ham radio operator might be willing to talk your ear off on the subject.
here
-ted
Any offtheshelf dsss/fhss ap can do this.
Some are harder than others to do, but all can act in a "cell" manner.
--sounds...exotic, sexy somehow...
802.11b/g:
;)
:)
If you have a Linksys 802.11 b/g router (WRT54G), then you have boughten a piece of crap. No seriously, that router has terrible range. I should know, I used to have one. I verified on the net, that is was the case. I exchanged it for a Netgear WGR614, which uses an Intersil PrismGT chipset, and my coworker bought the DLink variety, which also uses the Intersil PrismGT chipset. It gets MUCH MUCH better range.
With an Intel 802.11b gateway that I used to have, I would get -65db signal in my master bedroom, and XP would report VeryGood connection. With the Linksys G router, I got -77db, and XP reported Poor signal connection. When I connected the Netgear G router, I got -57db and XP reported Excellent signal strength. I borrowed a friends signal booster, and connected it to the linksys, and found it to be useless.
I ran NetIQ and did some through-put tests. With the Linksys, I got 17mbit/sec when I was in mixed mode, and 20mbit/sec in G only. On the netgear, I always got 21mbit/sec. With the 802.11b, I got 4.5mbit/sec...
802.11a:
With an AP based on the Atheros 5000 chipset, I got crappy signal at our work. Thanks to Tomshardware, I bought a Netgear WAB102, which is the ONLY A/B dualband AP that uses the second generation A, (Atheros 5001) chipset. This thing is awesome. At our work, its coverage actually exceeds that of B.
At home, I get -59 to -65db in the master bedroom on A. However, the cool thing is the throughput. In non-turbo mode, I get a constant 24mbit/sec in the master bedroom. On the G router, it seemed to be more sensitive to the signal strength, as it would always connect at 36mbit/sec or 48mbit/sec, consequently, I only get 21mbit/sec throughput if I was in the computer room. In my bedroom I got between 14-18mbit/sec.
With A however, I got 24. And I enabled Turbo mode, and it connected at 108mbit/sec, and I measured a constant 35-40mbit/sec everywhere in the house! and thats a two story house, with the AP upstairs.
Keep in mind the "b" radio in the Netgear WAB102 is a piece of crap Atmel chipset. Everytime I "accidently" rest my arm on my card, I lose connectivity. I found my Prism2/Prism3 cards would go into 1mbit/sec mode, and never recover, unless I unplug the card, and plug it back in. The A radio in it on the otherhand is truly awesome.
In the end, I returned my G router, and kept the Netgear WAB102 dual band A/B, and reconnected my Intel gateway for the B, and use Netgear for A.
Atheros has an white paper they posted talking about range and such of A and B, and testing results in an actual home environment and corp environment. Its rather interesting. I verified it myself at our office here with my own testing with various A and B equipment along with Netstumbler and NetIQ, and it is truly suprising.
So anyways, most range problems can be attributed to a shoddy AP, not the "technology". I mean, I've tested the Netgear WAB102, Netgear WGR614, Linksys WRT54G, Linksys WAP54G, Intel ProWireless 5000AP, Intel Gateway, DLink DI-624, and the Linksys BEFW11S4. I tested with Orinoco Silver, Linksys WPC11V3, Linksys WPC54G, Linksys WPC55AG(my fav card), Cisco Aironet 350, Linksys WUSB11 v2.6, and assorted generic Prism2 cards, so I can safely say I know what I'm talking about
(I work in a lab and have lots of wireless toys, if you guys can't tell
I've run a website on a Macintosh Quadra 660av, using the Microsoft Personal Web Server for the Mac OS 7.5.3, and it works well. I run it through dialup, and have to email my friends the current IP address, but we have fun with it. Anyone use one of these 68K macs for a permanent server? Or anyone using an even older mac for a web server? My worst server was a compaq contura running Grey Cat Linux 3.0. Here's the text of my GCL forum post on that:
"I have a little Compaq Contura notebook, with no screen (use a monitor) with 8 MB ram, 486 sx 25 processor and a 120 mb hdd.
Installed GCL 3.0 by transferring the installer files using MS-DOS intersvr, and when I run thttpd, I can also run GCL 3.0's X-windows, Netscape 3.04, xedit to modify the served page on the fly, and a terminal to use. Need to cd to the directory where your index.html page that will be served resides, then:
#thttpd -r -u user
to get the server running. Look at "top" in your terminal to get the process number. Once you get your IP address with "ifconfig" in a terminal, then go to it in Netscape. For this experiment, I use dialup access, GCL 3.0's "ppp-on" gets you connected fast. This little machine is very slow, and surfs best to "text only" pages in Netscape. GCL 3.0's "links" browser is better and uses less resources."
Here are some good open-source CGI utilities to model your wireless network coverage and plot point-to-point links:
Microwave Radio Path Analysis
Wireless Network Link Analysis
Line-of-Sight Path Analysis
United States Ground Elevation Retreiver
Fresnel Zone Boundry Calculator
I sucessfully downloaded and installed the alternate firmware for the Linksys WAP11 and boosted the wattage on all channels. I can now sit across the street and get online, just make sure you don't forget to enable WEP.
I just moved over the weekend from a tiny apartment to a much larger one in the same city. After spending two days trying to surf on someone else's broadband, I finally got my cable Internet hooked up tonight and reconnected my SMC wireless router. Now I can surf from my couch in front of the TV, from the bedroom, the kitchen, or from the spare bedroom/office. I don't have a pool, patio, veranda, or anyplace else, so my wireless network is an easy setup -- one access point. What I do have is a great place to live and a convenient way to surf from anywhere. And the wireless router was $80 used from my wife's last job, and it's configured through a web page. It's almost too easy to use.
Lousy minor setbacks! This world sucks! -- Homer Simpson
WEP encryption is setup by default with the AE. It prompts you for the network name and password during setup, so you can't really forget it unless you actively ignore the setup program.
this is what I've been waiting for, for so long, because slashdot is intolerable at 50% of my Linksys 802.11b. at 30% it's downright painfull to check mail.
I just installed some 802.11b equipment between my house and a neighbor that lives a few houses down, and across the street. The distance is probably around 250-300 feet or so (I have not stepped it out to see exactly how far). The equipment I used was a Linksys Wireless Access Point (WAP11) at each end, a Linksys Signal Booster (just to be safe, to make sure the signal was good and strong). The AP's are hooked up in a bridging mode, enabled wap, and disabled the SSID broadcast. I have a router in his house, that has its own IP off his broadband provider (which I will be paying for half of now)
The cost of the equipment was around $300 (but, luckily my work paid for this, so it was at no cost to me!) All and all, I feel the Linksys equipment is pretty good. The range (acording to the linksys) is 300 feet indoors and over 1100 feet outdoors.
Sure there are problems with Wi-Fi, but not the kind of problems described in this article. From the kitchen to the living room? Are you kidding? Wi-Fi works great at that range!
No my Wi-Fi didn't work like this out of the box, but after I read about the various settings on my 'access point' I was able to "dial it in" for a nearly flawless connection thru the entire house!
As I type, I'm sitting in the living room with no cords at all, and my DSL hub is upstairs in the office. Give it another try, and this time be prepared to do a bit of optimization. The out of the box configuration may not work for you...but it can be made to work!
John
PS. I've also used wireless access points across the country, like on the campuses of several major universities, and they work great! Just as advertised, wireless access, anywhere, anytime!
I tried setting my AP at various locations around the house, but I got my best results by putting it in the attic near the center of the house. Sure, I did have to run one wire up to the attic, but now the whole house [1 story, 2000sq-ft] is well covered. Sadly, the outer walls are brick which does NOT play nice with the signal. I can get signal in the garage ok, and on the back patio, but much further than that and I lose signal.
If I ever buy a pool, I'll probably put an AP in a good location to service that area.
End result? I'm quite happy and can surf effortlessly from any point in the house with one AP.
Ender
Nothing to see here
Just go over to www.fab-corp.com and buy an antenna. Plug it into any access point and your done. What's so hard about that?
The above is not worth reading.
Why spend $650 on three Apple Airports when $100 on a Linksys will suffice? If you need three base stations, get a smaller house!
i just moved into a new apt in jacksonville, fl and i've been enjoying a neighbors airport (11mbps so not extreme) access point for a few days now!
i was going to order dsl/cable but this makes me delay my purchase. i'm going to wait until he locks/encrypts/kicks me off before i order anything... save $40+/month! =)
Who the hell buys off the shelf? I order from manufacters!
So my linux on a 32mb flash card with a prism2 pc-card on a 60ft tower is a little home grown. Thats the way internet access is supposed to be had, through blood, sweat, and tears.
I'm glad Mr. Boutin, a tech (read: fluff) expert at MSN, needs to hire a WiFi engineer to setup his Wireless network.
Then again if his articles at Wired, Salon, and MSN are any indication of his technical prowess he might need to hire more than one.
Paul Boutin is the prime example of why "bloggers" shouldn't be journalists.
He's also a good example of why a Mac fanatic shouldn't work for MSN.
Way back, I had a Frequency Hopping Card. It was easily capable of running 300' from my basement floor to the back fence of my house. I switched to the current DSS and have had some other experiences.
I used to have a D-Link WiFi set-up, but it would barely get 30 feet.
I tried NetGear and had trouble at 10 feet.
And no one worked with the others PCMCIA cards, for long. Many lock up problems.
I have assumed that brand mixing will always be bad, regardless of the certifications people attempt to publish
I have since switched to the Orinoco gold card and have resumed my 300 feet range from the basement AP. Without question, Orinoco is the minimum I would invest again. And I didn't have to hire some WiFi Engineer!
With so many houses in the US built from lightweight materials (wood etc.) I'd expect WiFi to go through them pretty easily.
I've been in a motel in North Dakota where my GPS worked indoors!
...they dont mention that possibly he or one of his neighbors has one or more of the following which in addition to blocking materials in his house/walls are cutting down on the signal. 3 Access points for his house, esh, at $200 a pop? Buy a used orinoco/avaya/lucent ap-1000/ap3/rg-1000 and place an orinoco gold/silver card (cost about $250 on ebay) and pick up a 5db antenna for $30. That'll give plenty of signal in the house, if not, pop a 2nd card in it and run a short low-loss cable outside to the roof and pick up a 12 db antenna for another $100 w/cable and you're still below the $600 airport solution. Oh yes, WEP turned on, and only allow your own card's MAC addresses, turn off SSID broadcast, change the default SSID to something unrelated to you/your house/pet/etc on the AP.
Relive the BBS Past - One Byte at a Time! www.ssabbs.com
I wanted decent signal through out the house, and a WAP that did 802.11g/b.
:)
And I wanted this back in December I think it was. At the time, Airport Extreme was out. Linksys wasn't.
So I bought a single Airport Extreme.
Because of the range, my upper theater room and the TiVo could not for some reason get a good signal unless you raised it high in the air.
So when I picked up my new Powerbook G4 12" I added a second airport and did the WDS thing.
Worked like a champ.
Of course, just as I get this all done. I get transfered.
So now I have one in the garage plugged into my structured wiring cabinet / DSL modem hanging from teh wall and another one in the living room. Going to probably move that one upstairs into the theater room.
Works great though. I can surf from the screened in deck. It's great. Of course the little on likes to come and read keys off and beat on the keyboard while I attempt to post messages and such
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
I've tried WiFi, and it has its uses (expanding the LAN party to additional rooms with a wireless bridge) but it just cannot compete with the Cat 5 I ran to every bedroom. Cheap, reliable, secure, zero management required, and it didn't take very long to install it. (Of course, you have to own the house to do this...) Sometimes LESS gadgetry yields MORE results, sad as it is to admit it.
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
If I can't do it myself, with my own hardware, I ain't gonna do it. When I need something tweaked on the airport at 3am, my MAC buddy is asleep, beucase he has to get up at 5am and flip burgers.
Of course it may be a nice excuse to add a MAC laptop to the shopping cart... the wife has inquired about "What kind of laptop is that? The screen is so thin..."
M@
Krispy Cream is people
He mentions that his stucco house has metal lathe in it; my old house has this too, and it's hard to get decent coverage through it. It's like a big farraday cage in every room. I couldn't reach from my basement to the other end of the house reliably, had to move my ap more central.
The article posted was nothing more than an Apple ad.
For one, it didn't address client cards, if anything FAR more important range-wise than AP selection - Most APs have OK receivers (there are exceptions), meanwhile many WLAN cards have HORRIBLE receivers. (Almost anything Prism2 based except for high-end ones like the Demarctech ReliaWave).
Also, it failed to address other AP choices. Yes, the AirPort Extreme might be one of the only APs to support "repeater" operation (Although I'm disinclined to believe that, I'm positive some of the better Linksys units can do active repeating too.), the fact is that unless you have a mansion or you've picked bad client cards, there is absolutely no need.
I have a cheapass Belkin cable/DSL router/firewall + 802.11 AP. It's a POS, but I still can cover all of a rather large house with it, IF I'm using an Orinoco client card. Total cost for Orinoco card, cheapo Prism2 card, and AP - $200. ($150 for an AP/Prism2 bundle, $50 for the Ori). $50 less than the AirPort Extreme, and includes two client cards (one crappy one excellent.)
For $200, one could get one of the better Linksys APs (the b/g unit may suck, but many of the older b-only units are considered some of the best out there for those that can't afford Orinoco or Cisco) PLUS Linksys's amplifier unit which increases transmit power and receive sensitivity (has a recieve preamp in additon to Tx power amp.) That's less than the $250 for the Airport Extreme but for a longer-ranged solution. And it leaves $50 for a nice Orinoco card, whereas if you bought an AirPort Extreme, your minimal cost would be $300 if you wanted an Ori client card.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
I have many many different WLAN cards here. I even have generic Prism2 cards. Believe me, I found the AP to be more the culprit when it came to range, then the WLAN card did.
And I have a Linksys Signal Booster, and found it to be worthless. I attached it to both a B only Linksys Router, as well as the B/G router, and found that it did not increase my range one bit. If anything, maybe 5 feet, here at the office. I couldn't even get past the conference rooms. With the Netgear WAB102, the Intel Gateway, and the Netgear WGR614, I'm able to get coverage on pretty much the entire floor.
The problem with amplifiers, is that while it amplifies transmit power and receive sensitivity, it also amplifies noise. So if you have a crappy receiver/transmitter and/or a crappy antenna to begin with, you'll still have crappy reception. Its like plugging in a 250 watt amp into a Radio Shack brand stereo, and then expecting it to rival sound produced by a Harmon Kardon.
And what do you mean an apple add? I posted the link to the whitepaper, because it talked about the myths about 5ghz range sucking, and showed maps of an actual home environment and office environment, and tested several APs. I don't even think apple has an AP that uses an Atheros chipset, (though I could be wrong, I mostly only read the stuff that directly compared the Atheros 5001/5001X+ chipsets to the Atheros5000, Intersil PrismGT, and Broadcom chipsets)
Anyways, sorry about your problems with your wireless setup. I have a bunch of Orinoco Silver cards, and I never noticed any better range with them. Though I do like the card, because it has an external antenna jack.
And WEP's gonna keep someone out for what, 30 minutes tops? And in gaining that 30 minutes of security, on most cards you drop your transfer rates quite a bit. Real usefull..
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
I must admit some curiosity about the problem. I bought an Orinoco access point and put it under the stairs, centrally located, and I get top-notch reception throughout the house and solid connectivity over the entire .18 acre (.013 hectares) lot. My house was built in 1995 and doesn't have much metal in the construction - certainly not in the gypsum board walls.
I hate call waitin`~+~~~
NO CARRIER
Was referring to the original article, not your post. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
My D-Link 900AP+ is not so great. It usually works for two or three days, then throughput slowly degrades. It gets to the point where HTTP connections transfer a few KB, then stop. Trying again transfers a few KB, then stops--this is very frustrating when trying to download files or listen to MP3 streams. Then I have to go unplug the AP and plug it back in again, and then it works normally again for a few days. I've upgraded the firmware on the AP and on my DWL-650+ PC Card.
It's been working fine for the last week or so, which is the first time it's worked this long non-stop. But every now and then it drops the signal for a few seconds and my laptop has to reconnect; it does so in a few seconds, so it isn't much of a problem, but it shouldn't happen.
Tech support was not helpful at all. They did not seem to be aware of the problem, and the "level 3 engineer techs" never called me back like the "level 2 techs" said they would.
So, the 900AP+ works, but it can be unreliable. Having to go to the box and power cycle it is not acceptable.
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."