On Sep 4, 2010, at 3:56 PM, Andrew Hume wrote: > is bridge the right term? and can anyone specifically > recommend a brand or disrecommend a brand? > i am contemplating a linksys wrt54gl
Most APs can also operate in bridge mode, but if you want to use them to wirelessly extend a Wifi network and then bridge that to ethernet, the wireless network extension method has to be supported by both the core AP and the extension AP, and they need to use the same technologies to do so. The WDS methodology has gotten commonplace enough that most manufacturers who claim to support WDS should interoperate with most other manufacturers that also claim to support WDS, but of course there could always be minor niggling details. For that reason, when setting up an extension of a wireless network, I try to always use gear from the same vendor and which is explicitly referenced as being compatible with each other. I personally like Apple Airport Extremes for this kind of operation, or perhaps an Airport Extreme for the core AP and then an Airport Express as the WDS extension. But Netgear or D-Link should probably also work, although I'd be inclined to go with the more recent versions of their equipment. If you're extending a mixed 802.11a/b/g/n network, then what I like to do is to set up separate 2GHz (802.11b/g) and 5Ghz (802.11a/n) networks with different but related names, and then extend only the 5Ghz network. When I do that, the 2Ghz network comes along for the ride for free, whereas if I try to extend the 2Ghz network then things get seriously weird and don't work well -- and the 5Ghz network gets totally screwed. With the new simultaneous dual-frequency equipment, it doesn't seem that you can turn off one or the other network frequencies, which is supposed to make things easier when you've only got the one AP all by itself. However, in my experience this tends to make things more complex and less reliable when you have to try to extend the network wirelessly. Of course, you could always run a WRT54GL with the appropriate after-market firmware installed on them, but that's been a pain to support, and the hardware is getting old and can't handle the newer frequencies and isn't so good at handling the newer protocols. -- Brad Knowles <b...@shub-internet.org> LinkedIn Profile: <http://tinyurl.com/y8kpxu> _______________________________________________ Tech mailing list Tech@lopsa.org http://lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tech This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators http://lopsa.org/
