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Better Wireless
Originally posted on May 22nd,
2002
Get More Distance by Brand Mixing
The other day one of my clients
wanted to go wireless so I suggested he go with Netgear
or a Linksys setup. My
favorite combo is Orinoco,
but it's pricey. He already had a SonicWall
DSL Router and he wanted to work around the house and network
with his wife in the other room. He got a Netgear
Access Point and wireless card but when he attempted to walk
around he quickly found out that the backyard was forbidden territory.
In fact about 30-40 feet in any direction away from the Access
Point the signal plummeted to almost zero.
After that experiment, he discovered
that the Cisco brand wireless cards have more power (about 300%
more) than the competing brands Linksys and Netgear. What he
decided on was to use the SonicWall, a Netgear Access Point and
a Cisco AIR-PCM 352 wireless card for the laptop. The Cisco card
has 100mAh of power compared to the Netgear and Linksys cards
30mAh. When he plugged that in and attempted to walk to the before
out of range backyard, it worked just fine on 35-40% of signal
were the Linky and Netgear dropped to nothing. Interesting don't
you think.
So, if you're building a network,
do your own experiment in this manner. Find out the power ratings
of the Access Point and the wireless cards and base you purchase
on that as all these guys use the same technology to achieve
the same goal.
Michael
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