Secrets of the 802.11b masters
I've been testing a full palette of wireless access points from 3Com, Cayman, Intel, Linksys, SMC Networks, and a few others. I've come to believe that 802.11b and its progeny will wind up as the Global Positioning System of the next decade--a technology dreamed up for a limited purpose that mushrooms into a huge range of applications. When GPS was first conceived, who would have thought that it would be used to track whales, daily tides, or cement trucks in Mexico?
The most fundamental thing I've learned through installing and using wireless networking is to check your assumptions and preconceptions at the door. Since it's generally easy to get wireless networking up and running, many harried IT managers make the mistake of not following through to fine-tune their wireless access points or to dig into the subtleties, options, and parameters available.
Manufacturers should take some heat here, too, as the typical access point "manual" is hardly more than an installation guide. If you're preparing for wireless networking, download and read the IEEE 802.11 technical overview and Intel's wireless LAN white paper. They're short, and they provide enough basic information to grasp what wireless networking can and cannot do. Reading them will save you time in the long run.
Come close
But I promised secrets, and secrets I'll deliver. First, if you're in an environment where you're mixing access points from different companies, you'll soon discover each vendor delights in calling the six-byte network ID code necessary for communications between an access point and wireless clients by a different name.
Some access point vendors refer to the network ID by its technical name of Basic Service Set Identification. Others, like Intel, call the network ID the ESSID. 3Com, which, like Intel, sells an OEM product from Symbol Technologies, labels the network ID the Wireless LAN Service Area--similar to SMC's coinage of LAN Service Area.
802.11b access points and clients offer two communication modes. In ad-hoc mode, clients communicate in a peer-to-peer fashion with other clients. In infrastructure or base station mode, access points act as conventional hubs. A few access points can act as wireless bridges, linking wireless users to wired networks. This feature can be extremely handy for linking offices between floors, but it doesn't come standard, as some IT folks mistakenly think; it's found primarily in the higher-end access points.
With 802.11b access points, higher price is an indicator of the features you're getting in return. Case in point: One company I visited had just started to experiment with wireless networking and, understandably, was hoping to hold down costs. The network managers picked up a few low-cost Linksys access points, which are terrific for small offices or home use, but they were puzzled to find that they couldn't bridge two of them or tweak various parameters. "They're 802.11b, aren't they?" they asked me. Sure are, just like a Toyota Corolla and a Porsche Boxer are both cars.
They also discovered that when swapping in a new access point, it's not enough to merely disconnect the old one from the network in order to move its clients to the new one without modifying client settings. You have to actually power the access point down so connected clients will search for a new access point. The frazzled IT technician who disconnected the company's old Linksys access point made the common error of assuming that wireless clients are designed to communicate with the entire network, and if they can't reach the server, they'll try to find another access point that can. Wrong. Wireless cards know only one thing: "Am I communicating with an access point?" It's the access point's job to do everything else.
The last secret for today is that you can often connect wireless users to access points even past the fringes of an access point's coverage range by setting their wireless cards to select only from 802.11b's two slower speeds of 1Mbps and 2Mbps. In this way, you sacrifice the throughput of 802.11b's faster 5.5Mbps and 11Mbps settings in exchange for increased distance. And, of course, not every 802.11b card provides a utility that can do this. Linksys' does. Intel's utility, ironically, does not.
Next time, I'll tell you why the grandiose HyperLAN and 3G plans that Verizon and Sprint unveiled recently at the CTIA Wireless show are already doomed.
How are you using 802.11b? TalkBack below.In a PDA & Wireless World spot poll I conducted last week--and note I said poll, not definitive research report--41 percent of the respondents said they use 802.11b, either at work, home, or both. I throw this number out as additional validation for the flood of first-hand reports I've received on the inroads 802.11b is making into the corporate enterprise.
I've been testing a full palette of wireless access points from 3Com, Cayman, Intel, Linksys, SMC Networks, and a few others. I've come to believe that 802.11b and its progeny will wind up as the Global Positioning System of the next decade--a technology dreamed up for a limited purpose that mushrooms into a huge range of applications. When GPS was first conceived, who would have thought that it would be used to track whales, daily tides, or cement trucks in Mexico?
The most fundamental thing I've learned through installing and using wireless networking is to check your assumptions and preconceptions at the door. Since it's generally easy to get wireless networking up and running, many harried IT managers make the mistake of not following through to fine-tune their wireless access points or to dig into the subtleties, options, and parameters available.
Manufacturers should take some heat here, too, as the typical access point "manual" is hardly more than an installation guide. If you're preparing for wireless networking, download and read the IEEE 802.11 technical overview and Intel's wireless LAN white paper. They're short, and they provide enough basic information to grasp what wireless networking can and cannot do. Reading them will save you time in the long run.
Come close
But I promised secrets, and secrets I'll deliver. First, if you're in an environment where you're mixing access points from different companies, you'll soon discover each vendor delights in calling the six-byte network ID code necessary for communications between an access point and wireless clients by a different name.
Some access point vendors refer to the network ID by its technical name of Basic Service Set Identification. Others, like Intel, call the network ID the ESSID. 3Com, which, like Intel, sells an OEM product from Symbol Technologies, labels the network ID the Wireless LAN Service Area--similar to SMC's coinage of LAN Service Area.
802.11b access points and clients offer two communication modes. In ad-hoc mode, clients communicate in a peer-to-peer fashion with other clients. In infrastructure or base station mode, access points act as conventional hubs. A few access points can act as wireless bridges, linking wireless users to wired networks. This feature can be extremely handy for linking offices between floors, but it doesn't come standard, as some IT folks mistakenly think; it's found primarily in the higher-end access points.
With 802.11b access points, higher price is an indicator of the features you're getting in return. Case in point: One company I visited had just started to experiment with wireless networking and, understandably, was hoping to hold down costs. The network managers picked up a few low-cost Linksys access points, which are terrific for small offices or home use, but they were puzzled to find that they couldn't bridge two of them or tweak various parameters. "They're 802.11b, aren't they?" they asked me. Sure are, just like a Toyota Corolla and a Porsche Boxer are both cars.
They also discovered that when swapping in a new access point, it's not enough to merely disconnect the old one from the network in order to move its clients to the new one without modifying client settings. You have to actually power the access point down so connected clients will search for a new access point. The frazzled IT technician who disconnected the company's old Linksys access point made the common error of assuming that wireless clients are designed to communicate with the entire network, and if they can't reach the server, they'll try to find another access point that can. Wrong. Wireless cards know only one thing: "Am I communicating with an access point?" It's the access point's job to do everything else.
The last secret for today is that you can often connect wireless users to access points even past the fringes of an access point's coverage range by setting their wireless cards to select only from 802.11b's two slower speeds of 1Mbps and 2Mbps. In this way, you sacrifice the throughput of 802.11b's faster 5.5Mbps and 11Mbps settings in exchange for increased distance. And, of course, not every 802.11b card provides a utility that can do this. Linksys' does. Intel's utility, ironically, does not.
Next time, I'll tell you why the grandiose HyperLAN and 3G plans that Verizon and Sprint unveiled recently at the CTIA Wireless show are already doomed.
How are you using 802.11b? Talk Back below. Rich Santalesa is the chief analyst at PDA & Wireless World, an editorial, network, and wireless analysis firm based in New York.