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Linksys Shows Off New Products To SOCALWUG
John Hering writes "Last night at the Southern California Wireless Users Group (SOCALWUG) meeting, a representative from Linksys, a division of Cisco Systems, presented several new never-before-seen Linksys products which including a wireless-G range extender, a wireless switch, wireless network attached storage and even a new Boingo co-branded wireless-G router which will serve as an off-the-shelf hotspot solution. It's interesting to note how the new Linksys products continue to look more and more like Cisco products."
Cisco's stuff may be nearly bulletproof, but the damn things take forever to power on. A 350 AP or BR can easily take over 3 minutes to boot. I really hope that they can find a way around boot speed issues. The public at large will not be as willing to wait as a network admin.
I thought that Linksys was a subsidiary of Cisco... So why should it be surprising that Linksys products are beginning to look like Cisco's. I for one would welcome Cisco products at Linksys prices.
For LinkSYS to support WPA in AP-AP (Wireless Bridge) mode on their WAP54G.
"Note:WPA does not work in Wireless Bridge mode in this release"
Dammit people, WHEN will you get it right?
We don't need no stinkin NEW Products, we need completed features in our firmware for existing products.
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
Sounds like an interesting concept, but I wonder how it will scale...
Assuming single-channel G/B operation, the best it could do is divide G/B users into three distinct segments (three non-overlapping frequency ranges at best). With this lack of flexibility a switched architecture seems not to yield much benefit... In fact, the alternitive use of overlapping channels to increase the overall 'bus' of the netork (the dual channel 108 mbps devices') seems more beneficial. If the net is only segmented into 3 segments, best case, and any given two hosts on the network communicate, there is a 33% chance they are on the same segment anyway, and the switched benefit isn't had. With dual channel, single segment, sure there is a 100% chance for contention in that case, but far more bandwidth available, and much better performance in wireless to lan communication (which is 98% of usage anyway).
Of course, it could be different from what I'm picturing, maybe it is more akin to a managed hub, where packets are only retransmitted to each host on 'switch-like' rules, but it remains the standard single-media solution. Perhaps kept very switchlike by different encryption keys per host, but ultimately the media is still shared in a hub fashion, so the typical network performance benefits of switched ethernet networks are not there to be had.. Of course, more intelligently handling mixed B/G devices could be the case, which would be a good thing..
Anyone know any more details about what they are meaning by a 'switched wireless network'? It certainly could be an interesting concept if the standard had more non-overlapping channels...
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
I'm glad to see they seem to have dumped that horrible design they had.
But more importantly, it looks like this will make what I wanted possible:
Wireless switching with the Linksys WET54GS5 Wireless Ethernet Switch:
- Managed Ethernet switch
- Wireless supports virtual LANs (VLAN)
- Supports up to 69 VLAN users
- Each wireles suser gets a separate Subnetted IP address
- Targeted release June 2004
This should enable you to share your wireless Internet access, without opening up your own network to strangers.
If you don't want encryption, why should you be forced to use it? WEP has its flaws anyway, as has been repeatedly pointed out. Personally, I think MAC filtering is a much more hassle-free method of securing a network, especially for small home networks.
No, an access point that doesn't allow encryption is simply the wrong solution. It is the responsibility of the user to secure the network, and it's not like it's such a great deal of work.
I hear there's rumors on the Slashdots
The SAN device looks cool - it appears to be a device that makes any USB mass storage device appear as a network drive. I wonder if it shows up as a windows file server, nfs server, or a network attached block device? Can two computers use it simultaneously? Does anyone else make something similar?
-jim
Perhaps Cisco will change this... But we've had nothing but trouble with them at work. Those 8 port switches? Forget using them on any network that requires uptime. If you get a little power flicker they are gone, they hold onto the last piece of traffic they had (usually an arp) and just keep repeating it until the network floods and goes down. I've experienced this with no less then 6 DIFFERENT linksys 8-port switches (the 4 ports are fine and do not do this).
The Broadband routers do the same thing occassionally, they will packet storm on the network and cause traffic problems.
So far all i've seen says YUCK junk. Our company used to purchase linksys exclusively to use internally (when we didn't need something as powerful as a 24 port DELL switch) and also on our broadband network when customer's needed equipment. We've since switch to D-Link and have had not an issue.
The idea was you installed a driver on your PC. Then you plugged your USB stuff into this device, which plugged into ethernet. Then any computer on your ethernet network could use that USB device (assuming it had all the drivers/etc).
It only worked with some things (HDs, printers, etc) and not others (can't think of any off the top of my head, but I doubt that an ethernet adapter or wifi adapter would work). OH! Hubs wouldn't work either.
The product had it's problems (such as only one computer could "use" each device at a time) but it was still a neat product. It would let you do the same thing, but only one person could use it at a time.
As for the Linksys thing, my guess is that it appears as a Samba server on the network and multiple people can use it at once (like any Samba server). I think it's just a NAS device without the hard drive already attached.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.