Wi-Fi Times Sixteen

2Stupid2KnowIt writes "eWeek has a cool review of Xirrus' XS-3900 Wireless LAN Array. The unit consists of 16 Integrated Access Points and a wireless switch....all in one device. According to their website, Xirrus can achieve 800+ Mbps of bandwidth and handle 1000+ users. Finally enough bandwidth for us all to cut the cord?"

Comments

cut the cord?

[joNDoty]

I'll never be able to cut the cord as long as latency for wireless is so high.

Re:Cut the Cord?

[ucahg]

Or a power cord with broadband over powerlines ;)

Re:cut the cord?

[TheRaven64]

Latency. Right. The average ping time between me an a machine on the other side of a wireless access point is 1.4ms. The ping time between me and the nearest machine on the other side of my cable modem is a goo 10 times that. Human reaction times are at least 200ms (with 3-400 being more common). What on earth do you do that an extra 1.4ms is intolerable?

Re:cut the cord?

[gl4ss]

I think you're mixing up gprs and wifi connections..

or just fishing.

How much latency does your wifi network then have? how many ms?

Re:cut the cord?

[Afrosheen]

Your latency is good because 1. you're close to the AP and have a good signal and 2. there aren't too many devices using it.

  Now, let's take a look at the corporate world outside of your parent's basement where commercial wireless applications are found.

  When you start adding alot of wireless clients, you end up with, as the grandparent mentioned, high latency. Notice how there aren't too many wireless VOIP routers on the market (that are unwired)? Not too many wireless handsets that work with a wireless VOIP router? It's not because the tech is impossible, it's because it's not good enough.

  Trust me when I say that we'd love to deploy a wireless voip system, and alot of companies would, but nobody has provided us with a feasible path. The closest you can get and have it reliable is to add an IAXY (wired) with a standard cordless phone plugged into the fxs port.

Cut the Cord?

[dsginter]

Yeah right... until we can get 10-12 hours out of a laptop battery, we'll all have a cord. Might as well be a network cord with POE.

Lan Party?

[rwven]

Sounds like a nice solution to save the pain in the butt of setting up large lan gaming events like the CPL... If a company can come up with a "gaming version" of this idea that "guarantees" lower latency and such i bet a lot of places will start adopting it... The only cords you'd have would be power cords... i like.

Re:Lan Party?

[TheRaven64]

Seconded. We had a 6-player quake[1] game on our WLAN, and it was fine. Actually, games designed for WLANs could use dramatically less bandwidth, since the network is intrinsically broadcast you could eliminate the need for a server to receive everything and retransmit it.

[1] A game I know of that works on Mac, Windows, Linux and FreeBSD with native executables.

I love the math they did to come up with this...

[Samurai Cat!]

"Priced at $12,000, the XS-3900 is a relatively affordable solution for locations that require high-density networks. With all functions in a single device, administrators could see significant cost savings for deployment because multiple power and Ethernet outlets are not needed."

So the savings on 11 ethernet jacks and power sockets are worth a $12,000 price tag? :/

Wrong limiting factor...

[pla]

Finally enough bandwidth for us all to cut the cord?

Multi-channel 802.11a has plenty of bandwidth to cut the cord. Even plain ol' 802.11g would suffice.

However, only one question really matters, and I doubt a positive answer:

Can it give me a decent signal more than one room away from the AP?

Re:Wrong limiting factor...

[wilsonjd]

My limiting factor is the number of 2.4GHz wireless phones nearby.

Re:This could be a really inconvenient to employee

[CyanDisaster]

Turning on WEP, and authorizing on the MAC address would prevent most, if not all, wardrivers from connecting. Although MAC addresses can be spoofed relatively easily, it would definitely deter amateurish attempts at free internet access.

Hope be with ye,
Cyan

Location

[kevin_conaway]

Sure they get a lot of bandwidth out of this thing, but don't they essentially get the same coverage they would with one AP?

For a large size area, the benefit to having multiple APs is that you can spread them out to increase your coverage.

Silly gimmicks

[sexyrexy]

Such gimmicky devices never take off. They proport to be some groundbreaking new amazingness when in actuality it's "a bunch of WiFi transceivers stacked on top of each other". That's not new, and it's not amazing. Companies have for years sold network cards that work by load-balancing traffic across multiple CAT5 lines - a good idea, sure, but it's never going to be widely accepted. How many double-100baseT NICs do you have? If you needed more than 100mbps, you'd buy gigabit ethernet. People who need more wireless speed are going to wait for the next step in technology, not a bunch of the same thing duct-taped together and put in a shiny plastic case.

Re:This could be a really inconvenient to employee

[revmoo]

No, it isn't.

And How?

[doombob]

How is my company supposed to be able to afford the equivalent of a couple hundred T1s (ok, hyperbole) underneath this uber hot spot to handle all these users? Can't wait till one of our customers calls us this week and asks us to give him 800Mbits up and down. We already have to filter all spam perfectly without deleting a single one of their legitimate e-mails, and well as ensure they never get a virus or any spyware. Evar.

What's the big deal?

[Brandybuck]

What's the big deal about "cutting the cord"? Everyone's acting like this is the Holy Grail or something, but as near as I can tell, I'll still be sitting in front of the same old cubicle using the same old workstation, so what's so Evil(tm) about the "cord"?

Re:Am I the only...

[MightyMait]

Ah, if only "science" was more scientific and less religious/political. Forgive my laziness for not citing references (my dad has a good textbook in German), but you do realize that research requires funding, and funding requires (political) will-power, don't you? There's a lot more research in the field in Europe, I understand, and I suspect many of the US studies that find EMF's to be harmless are funded by cell-phone manuracturers.

Can you cite the research into the efficacy of quartz crystals in healing? I've never seen that. If you can't prove it doesn't work, don't knock it. I'm not making any sweeping statements here, just asking some questions.

I'll be the first to admit that I spent a lot more time as an undergrad working on music than doing my homework (and too much time as a professional reading /. rather than programming), but I was surprised to find that one of my MS-candidate TA's didn't realize you could use an audio speaker as a microphone as well...

You *did* see the recent article stating that nearly a third of medical studies are contradicted by subsequent studies?

Re:This could be a really inconvenient to employee

[mmjb]

TFA makes no reference to multiple (distributed) antennae - which was my initial thought on how range might be widened.

(But anyway, that would defeat the purpose of not having an ethernet system with multiple wireless access points, right? Certainly sounds less cost-effective than ethernet.)

Agree with parent - I'm also not seeing why this device has so much capacity when range (and therefore potential users) appears so limited.

Re:This could be a really inconvenient to employee

[Smoking Tongue]

So, you put this on the 2nd floor of your building. It'll be in range of the almost 314 people on the 1st floor, and 314 people on the 3rd floor.