About "address 4 field of IEEE"

Hi,

Can please somebody shade some light for me on the address 4 field of IEEE ?
A new ISP in my area is installing a wireless system with very competitive
rates but they are using gears from smartbridges.com and told me that I have
to buy a client adapter from them because they would not support a normal
wifi 802.11b adapter. I've checked the smartbridges product description and
noted their products will work with any wifi product supporting the so
called address 4 field of IEEE. I don't know if my Linksys WAP54G is among
those supported since the linksys site is silent on this subject.

Kind regards,

Wiseman

"Wiseman" <fskamal@"nospam"yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hi,
>
> Can please somebody shade some light for me on the address 4 field
of IEEE ?
> A new ISP in my area is installing a wireless system with very
competitive
> rates but they are using gears from smartbridges.com and told me
that I have
> to buy a client adapter from them because they would not support a
normal
> wifi 802.11b adapter. I've checked the smartbridges product
description and
> noted their products will work with any wifi product supporting the
so
> called address 4 field of IEEE. I don't know if my Linksys WAP54G is
among
> those supported since the linksys site is silent on this subject.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Wiseman

Address 4 field (4 addresses) usually is in reference to WDS (wireless
distribution system.)
WDS allows modes such as bridging and repeating and is handled at the
AP/Bridge/Repeater
level and the card adapter doesnt know or care about the 4 addresses.
The WAP54G supports
WDS but it may or may not work or talk to smartbridges using WDS.

From SmartBridges website:
smartBridges devices use Address-4 field, which is an optional field
as specified by IEEE 802.11b standard. If any IEEE 802.11b compliant
wireless access points supporting this field, then it can be used with
Client-Bridge mode.

In this case, I would recommend you to use the airBridge series which
is a standard Ethernet client device and will work with any access
point supporting the 802.11b standard instead of using the airPointPRO
series as client devices (CB mode). This will prevent you from having
any incompatibility issues with normal 802.11b Access points.

End Smartbridge

The AirPointPro uses WDS for bridging, the AirBridge is a normal
ethernet bridge and will talk to any AP. I think what

they are trying to say is that you may need an AirPoint (in place of
your WAP54G) to use wireless ...note this sentance:

This will prevent you from having any incompatibility issues with
normal 802.11b Access points.

Wiseman wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Can please somebody shade some light for me on the address 4 field of IEEE ?
> A new ISP in my area is installing a wireless system with very competitive
> rates but they are using gears from smartbridges.com and told me that I have
> to buy a client adapter from them because they would not support a normal
> wifi 802.11b adapter. I've checked the smartbridges product description and
> noted their products will work with any wifi product supporting the so
> called address 4 field of IEEE. I don't know if my Linksys WAP54G is among
> those supported since the linksys site is silent on this subject.

From the WISP's point of view, it makes very good sense for you to use
a smartBridges client. They can then log into your radio and make needed
changes and/or do troubleshooting. If everybody on their network gets to
use any old el cheapo WiFi client then much of their control is
vaporized. That's not good if you're trying to keep a network working or
have only customers that have paid their bill.

Any WiFi standard client will work fine with smartBridges access points,
but that's not the whole story.