Wireless Networking

quantus · Post by **quantus** » Thu Aug 05, 2004 10:11 pm

Ok, let's summarize:

Necessary:
1 Wireless router 802.11b ok, but g is better if streaming video.
1 Wireless card per machine
Maybe consider pairing the brand of the router and cards to get an extra speed boost. Some vendors add special stuff that only works when paired with more of their hardware.

Extra:
1 spiffy directional antenna to get a cleaner connection to the first floor from the third floor.
1 AP to allow you to use two frequencies for less interferance. (one frequency for the AP with the spiffy antenna and the other frequency for everything else.)

BAD:
Bridges (unless you're linking your network with your neighbor's across the street)

quantus · Post by **quantus** » Thu Aug 05, 2004 10:17 pm

Dwindlehop wrote:
quantus wrote:From what I've seen of USB wireless devices like Jonathan mentions is that the antenna is not very good at all and there's often nowhere to attach a better antenna.
While true, is this any different for PCMCIA devices?

My experience in PCMCIA wireless cards is is mostly limited to lucent orrinocos and a little bit of Cisco Aironet card. The lucent cards had the extra plug and the antenna in the cisco cards rocked already. The one USB device I saw couldn't maintain a connection while my lucent card had 3 of 5 bars in the connection strength bar (I forget what the SNR range is to be considered 3 of 5 bars, but 2 bars is still enough to have a connection).

Post by **Jonathan** » Thu Aug 05, 2004 10:22 pm

I think this is largely the difference between a $100 device and a $50 device, regardless of the bus technology, but hey, I haven't poked at them too much.

quantus · Post by **quantus** » Thu Aug 05, 2004 11:37 pm

Yeah, there probably isn't much difference between PCMCIA and USB if there were no other differences. The difference comes in the fact that USB devices are entirely external and therefore under great pressure to shrink to the smallest size possible. PCMCIA devices get the fixed internal space of the slot allotted to them so the only external piece tends to be the antenna. There's no real pressure to shrink the rest of the device and make it more expensive. Therefore, cost for cost, PCMCIA will likely win since it'll have a smaller external footprint in the end. This leaves USB devices only the ability to compete by having cheaper smaller devices which means they need to skimp on quality.

VLSmooth · Post by **VLSmooth** » Thu Aug 05, 2004 11:52 pm

Just to clarify, the wireless network isn't for laptops (yet); it's for 3 mid-towers and an SFF box. There are no PCMCIA slots.

Post by **Jonathan** » Fri Aug 06, 2004 12:31 am

Newegg has a pretty nifty selection of wireless NICs, both PCI and USB. There's some PCI cards with external antennas. There's also this nifty directional USB adapter. C'mon, 6 dB!

I have no idea how good any of these products Newegg has are.

Peijen · Post by **Peijen** » Fri Aug 06, 2004 2:09 pm

VLSmooth wrote:Just to clarify, the wireless network isn't for laptops (yet); it's for 3 mid-towers and an SFF box. There are no PCMCIA slots.

quantus wrote:Ummm, the pci wireless cards tend to be a PCMCIA to PCI adapter and a PCMCIA wireless card so reviews of a similar PCMCIA card should be sufficient... From what I've seen of USB wireless devices like Jonathan mentions is that the antenna is not very good at all and there's often nowhere to attach a better antenna.

VLSmooth · Post by **VLSmooth** » Fri Aug 06, 2004 4:46 pm

I know, I wasn't debating that it was mentioned. I was just clarifying since it was roundabout.