Different brands of AP's and cards - what to use?

While I'm not necessarily new to the wireless scene, I have a very narrow
view as I have only ever used Linksys equipment for my wired/wireless
networking needs. The company I work at is very interested in going
wireless and as the network administrator, it falls to me to research what
would be best for the corporate user.

As I mentioned, I've only ever used Linksys equipment and I have been very
satisfied with it, but that's because I'm using it in a three bedroom
apartment that is maybe 1300sq ft. The office I'm using it in several time
larger and has a lot of brick walls. What I am asking is for suggestions
for both a wireless AP and cards that are of reasonable price but are better
than the standard "home network" gear (ie. Linksys).

Our current network setup is a DHCP network behind a corporate firewall with
several Foundry Network switches. Nothing fancy, and only about 50 users.
The only difference is that the users are spread out among three buildings
joined in the middle, so I know I'm going to need three different AP's. I'm
not worried about people carrying IP's from one AP to another.

Now I've seen some people (not necessarily here) give some pretty bad
reviews of Linksys equipment and how it fails out after a year and a half,
and wanted to get your opinions on Orinico, Netgear and D-Link wireless
devices.

And one other question...

We have an older G4 Titanium Powerbook and need an Airport card for that as
well. Will an Airport Extreme card work with all types of non-Mac AP's or
will I need to purchase an Airport Extreme AP as well?

Thanks in advance for any comments or thoughts you want to share!

"Andy S." <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
news:2cydnU58a8qUPpvcRVn-(E-Mail Removed):

> While I'm not necessarily new to the wireless scene, I have a very
> narrow view as I have only ever used Linksys equipment for my
> wired/wireless networking needs. The company I work at is very
> interested in going wireless and as the network administrator, it
> falls to me to research what would be best for the corporate user.

Suggest you focus on the "corporate user" aspect

> As I mentioned, I've only ever used Linksys equipment and I have
> been very satisfied with it, but that's because I'm using it in a
> three bedroom apartment that is maybe 1300sq ft. The office I'm
> using it in several time larger and has a lot of brick walls.
> What I am asking is for suggestions for both a wireless AP and
> cards that are of reasonable price but are better than the
> standard "home network" gear (ie. Linksys).

The "home network gear" that you describe is not, in my opinion,
suitable for corporate use. However suitable it may be for home use,
it is generally short of the reliability, quality, logging and
management functions required.

> Our current network setup is a DHCP network behind a corporate
> firewall with several Foundry Network switches. Nothing fancy,
> and only about 50 users. The only difference is that the users are
> spread out among three buildings joined in the middle, so I know
> I'm going to need three different AP's. I'm not worried about
> people carrying IP's from one AP to another.

If your wired network works OK, what is the pressure for wireless?
Depending on the class of user of course, if it is a few executive
laptops then it may prove an expensive option...

> Now I've seen some people (not necessarily here) give some pretty
> bad reviews of Linksys equipment and how it fails out after a year
> and a half, and wanted to get your opinions on Orinico, Netgear
> and D-Link wireless devices.

I recommend that you look hard at companies which specialise in
corporate communications and less hard at companies in the consumer
market place.

Cisco is without question the leader in this segment. I recommend
that this is where you should look. You may also be pleased that
Cisco is the parent of Linksys, the consumer brand that you are
comfortable with.

If your company is also considering connection from employees' homes
to the company network, then again Cisco have a good reputation for
reliable, secure VPN connections.

My recommendation: don't try to do it on the cheap. Go for a supplier
geared for the corporate market and with the right backup to support
the corporate user. Make life easy for yourself: spend the extra
money and go for something that you *know* will work in a commercial
environment. Remember - your reputation, and possibly your career,
may depend on it...

> We have an older G4 Titanium Powerbook and need an Airport card
> for that as well. Will an Airport Extreme card work with all
> types of non-Mac AP's ...

Yes

> ... or will I need to purchase an Airport
> Extreme AP as well?

No

Hope this helps



--

Richard Perkin
To email me, change the AT in the address below
richard.perkinATmyrealbox.com

It's is not, it isn't ain't, and it's it's, not its, if you mean it
is. If you don't, it's its. Then too, it's hers. It isn't her's.
It isn't our's either. It's ours, and likewise yours and theirs.
-- Oxford University Press, Edpress News

Andy S. <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> reviews of Linksys equipment and how it fails out after a year and a half,

If Linksys only has a lifespan of a year and a half then mine is

Thanks for the quick reply Richard...I agree with you that I should indeed
aim towards a "corporate user" viewpoint.

> If your wired network works OK, what is the pressure for wireless?
> Depending on the class of user of course, if it is a few executive
> laptops then it may prove an expensive option...

About half of the company is on laptops and not a day doesn't go by where
they've destroyed another ethernet cable by running over it, or I have to
create a newer, longer cable so they can reposition their desks or have more
than two laptop users in a meeting room. Of course this is going to be an
expensive rollout, especially if this is going to be the higher-end gear -
I'm doing price research right now and the difference for an ORiNOCO AP is
about 5x for a Linksys AP! Cisco is about 8x the price!! But I've got
managing directors from all 3 departments as well as the owners of the
company expressing interest in a wireless option for the company so here I
am....

> Cisco is without question the leader in this segment. I recommend
> that this is where you should look. You may also be pleased that
> Cisco is the parent of Linksys, the consumer brand that you are
> comfortable with.

What about ORiNOCO? Would that be considered corporate use or is it more
geared towards the highest end of the home user? Looking at the features of
the Cisco devices and while robust and offering excellent security features,
I'm just wondering if it's more than we need (ie. BOOTP support, Power over
Ethernet, and VLAN support...we use none of these). ORiNOCO has a much more
scaled-back line that fits our current network configuration.

> If your company is also considering connection from employees' homes
> to the company network, then again Cisco have a good reputation for
> reliable, secure VPN connections.

We already have an Intel VPN device set up and provide the software for it,
but I can definitely see merit to having it run off hardware rather than
software. Excellent point.

> My recommendation: don't try to do it on the cheap. Go for a supplier
> geared for the corporate market and with the right backup to support
> the corporate user. Make life easy for yourself: spend the extra
> money and go for something that you *know* will work in a commercial
> environment. Remember - your reputation, and possibly your career,
> may depend on it...

Once again, thanks for taking the time to write this all out and educate me
in this matter!

> > Will an Airport Extreme card work with all
> > types of non-Mac AP's ...
>
> Yes

Excellent.

(E-Mail Removed) wrote:
> Andy S. <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>> reviews of Linksys equipment and how it fails out after a year and a half,

> If Linksys only has a lifespan of a year and a half then mine is

about to die.

If the need is a conference room, you can buy and toss several Linksys for
the price of a Cisco.

If you have the ability, I would put the WAPs outside the corporate LAN,
NAT firewalled from the internet, and VPN-only access into the
corporate network. Then you don't have to set up WEP or some other
protection for the corporate LAN which would be exposed via WAPs.

Your users are already used to the VPN connection from home, I take it?

I would tend to stay with Linksys all around, if you already happy with the
Linksys that you've got.

--
---
Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley (Lake County) CA USA 38.8-122.5

"Andy S." <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message news:<1dCdnX8mKbplKpvcRVn-(E-Mail Removed)>...

> Looking at the features of
> the Cisco devices and while robust and offering excellent security features,
> I'm just wondering if it's more than we need (ie. BOOTP support, Power over
> Ethernet, and VLAN support...we use none of these).

If you're already using Foundry for your network infrastructure, you
might want to look at the Foundry access point line as well.
Enterprise-class featureset and reliability, at a lower price than the
Cisco gear. Plus you may be able to take advantage of a common
management interface.