Wireless Througput

Hi,
Most likely mentioned somewhere already but. . .

Enabling a network key on my WLAN reduces the max speed from +500K/s to
300K/s. a loss of approx. 45%

Is there a better way to "secure" teh Wlan without degradation in
performance as much?

Cheers

On Wed, 24 Dec 2003 15:30:16 +0100, Eric wrote:

> Hi,
> Most likely mentioned somewhere already but. . .
>
> Enabling a network key on my WLAN reduces the max speed from +500K/s to
> 300K/s. a loss of approx. 45%


Apparently not. I recently reduced the WEP key from 104bit to 40bit as an
experiment and discovered that it made no difference whatsoever. I also
get about 350 kbyte/s (which is only 2.8Mbit/s).

It's good enough for broadband internet, but if you need to shift a lot of
data around your network, wired is the only way to go at the moment.

--
David Haggett
Linux user since 01/01/2003
Email: david<at>haggett<dot>demon<dot>co<dot>uk

On Wed, 24 Dec 2003 15:30:16 +0100, Eric <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> Hi,
> Most likely mentioned somewhere already but. . .
>
> Enabling a network key on my WLAN reduces the max speed from +500K/s to
> 300K/s. a loss of approx. 45%

I was wondering it it was just me. I get 600KB/s open system or around
300KB/s w/WEP with mixed hardware (WAP11 v2.2 & SMC 2632W pc card), which
is good enough for my 1500 (1290 kbps) adsl.

> Is there a better way to "secure" teh Wlan without degradation in
> performance as much?

I know that scp using compression approximately doubles the speed of ftp,
so it brings me back up to around +/- 600KB/s for local transfers and
twice my adsl speed for internet transfers. I use ssh even within my LAN
for console access or running remote X programs.

I am not sure how much overhead ipsec VPN (freeswan) has when using
compression, if you went opensystem and firewalled most everything other
than ipsec ports/protocols on that interface. I have only used it via
dialup ppp (internet to my adsl). Forwarding tcp ports through ssh is
much easier to configure than ipsec, especially if you do not have root
access on destination.

--
David Efflandt - All spam ignored http://www.de-srv.com/

Eric <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> Hi,
> Most likely mentioned somewhere already but. . .
>
> Enabling a network key on my WLAN reduces the max speed from +500K/s to
> 300K/s. a loss of approx. 45%
>
> Is there a better way to "secure" teh Wlan without degradation in
> performance as much?

Get a good WAP that can handle the extra load of WEP encryption.

--
Frank Sweetser fs at wpi.edu
WPI Network Engineer