Is Cisco 350 AP Intentionally Crippled to Prevent Long Distance?

Will a Cisco 350 AP (AIR-AP352E2R-A-K9) and 350 Workgroup Bridge
(AIR-WGB352R) combination work at long distances (5-10+ miles), given
sufficient antenna gain and good LOS/Fresnel conditions ... just
as well and reliably as less costly consumer-grade equipment?

Or did Cisco intentionally cripple the 350 AP, as some old posts
seem to suggest, to limit the AP-WGB combination to 1-2 miles, even
with external antennas ... to force you to have to buy a pair of their
350 Wireless Bridges (BR350-A-K9) to do long distance?

The 350 AP and WGB can be had for reasonable prices nowadays on
eBay, but the BR is still at stratospheric prices even on eBay.
I am wondering if it is possible to do long distance using
just the AP-WGB combination, instead of BR-BR.

On 20 Oct 2004 09:25:17 -0700, (E-Mail Removed) (c hore) wrote:

>Will a Cisco 350 AP (AIR-AP352E2R-A-K9) and 350 Workgroup Bridge
>(AIR-WGB352R) combination work at long distances (5-10+ miles), given
>sufficient antenna gain and good LOS/Fresnel conditions ... just
>as well and reliably as less costly consumer-grade equipment?
>
>Or did Cisco intentionally cripple the 350 AP, as some old posts
>seem to suggest, to limit the AP-WGB combination to 1-2 miles, even
>with external antennas ... to force you to have to buy a pair of their
>350 Wireless Bridges (BR350-A-K9) to do long distance?

No, the wall is at about 10-13 miles. This may help with the numbers:
http://peertech.org/LongShotWiFiTiming
No experience with using Cisco 350 AP's for long range. All mine are
indoors. I do have an AIR-BR342 bridge running at 5 miles, but that
doesn't count.

I dunno about the access point, but the client radios will do over 2
miles. See:
http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2003/12/10/3/
in the section "Amateurs complete 82-mile two-way DSSS link on 2.4
GHz" using Cisco 350 cards without amps. No clue if they tweaked the
timing.

Any references to claims of "intentional" crippling? I wanna see if
they make sense.

>The 350 AP and WGB can be had for reasonable prices nowadays on
>eBay, but the BR is still at stratospheric prices even on eBay.
>I am wondering if it is possible to do long distance using
>just the AP-WGB combination, instead of BR-BR.

It's not just the timing. The wireless transparent bridges have an
additional protocol that lets it distribute the MAC address to port
number bridging table between the two ends of the bridge.


--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 AE6KS 831-336-2558

: Or did Cisco intentionally cripple the 350 AP, as some old posts
: seem to suggest, to limit the AP-WGB combination to 1-2 miles, even
: with external antennas ...
[..]

Tell me: HOW?
If power is the same, even pcmcias inside are exactly the same.
It will work both on AP and bridge. But when connecting two bridges
you're getting some extra kbytes/s.

Martin


--
Marcin Lukasik
Milea Wireless Communications, http://milea.pl