[lug] OT: Wiring recommendations?

[Nate Duehr]

On Tue, Mar 19, 2002 at 10:51:16AM -0700, Elyse Grasso wrote:
> We use wireless networks at work, and I must say I'm not terribly impressed 
> by the throughput or the reliability we've seen: our training lab network 
> died twice during a class we were teaching last week (possibly interference 
> from equipment in the doctor's office next door?) which was very embarassing 
> and annoying. Anyway, I'm already equipped and connected for a wired lan at 
> home (just with exposed cables) and I'm spoiled by the connection speeds.

Does the Dr. have a microwave oven, and was it lunchtime?  :-)

Ahh... the joys of unlicensed (i.e. unprotected) RF spectrum.  (GRIN)

However, most 802.11b setups can be configured to do CTS/RTS which is
sometimes called the "anti-microwave oven mode" or similar... heh heh.
It slows throughput a bit.

Dumb question... what application software were you training on, what
speed are your cards synching up at, and has anyone done any throughput
tests on the wireless side of the LAN?

(I guess what I'm saying here is, who installed it, and why didn't they
give you a baseline test?  Oh ... the dreaded "T" word that no one seems
to do anymore.  Did they do any planning to determine if your training
application was a good fit for wireless or was it just convenient not to
run wires?)

Also, remember even though wireless is spread-spectrum and all that,
don't let the mumbo jumbo hide the fact that it's still half-duplex and
worse, two stations that can't hear each other can collide creating the
"hidden node" problem experienced by wireless data networks since they
were created.  Cisco cards and some others allow for tweaking of the
output power of both the access points and the cards themselves,
allowing for customizing and fine-tuning the RF patterns for a
particular building or application.  As much as I love the Lucent cards
(okay, Aguiere or WaveLAN, or Orinoco or whatever they are now) they
don't appear to have this feature easily accessible.

All the old RF rules apply, the 802.11b cards just put it in
easy-to-install packaging and few people have played with wireless
networks prior to using 802.11b due to its popularity.

-- 
Nate Duehr <nate at natetech.com>