Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: 3Com® Wireless Ethernet Bridge

This is topic 3Com® Wireless Ethernet Bridge in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
https://ft-forum.com/ft/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=8;t=001494

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 11-27-2002, 07:25 AM:

Has anyone had any experience with 3Com® 11 Mbps Wireless LAN Building-to-Building Bridges?

Specifically how picky are they about having line of site over a 2 mile distance? Reliability issues?

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 11-27-2002, 08:37 AM:

I'm sure every member here has had experience with that! In my experience, wireless LAN sucks much ass.

Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 11-27-2002, 09:20 AM:

I have a small wireless (and wired) LAN in the house. Not building-to-building and certainly not 2 miles. Sounds interesting; I'd like to hear more about what you're doing.

For my house, I am using 2 of Apple's AirPort Base Stations (ABS). They are 802.11b compliant, the speed is 11Mbps and they are compatible with PC's. I know that people "enhance" them all the time by adding an antenna, but Apple doesn't recommend this (does any manufacturer?) and it would void the warranty but other people have done the modification successfully. I don't know how big the radius would be. I suppose you could easily cover 2 miles if you had several of them spaced around the property. Is that what you have in mind?

What I did...

I connected an ABS to the internet and that one serves as a router and a bridge. The WAN port is connected to my cable modem. The LAN port is connected to a hub which services all of the Cat-5 ports in the house. The ABS distributes private IP addresses to all connected computers (wired or wireless). The internet connection is shared with all of them (ABS has a max. of 50 per network).

Two of my computers are wireless and four are wired; they all "see" and "talk to" each other. A second ABS is connected to the network (via LAN). I needed to add that one because there's a lot of concrete and steel in this old house and the signal from the first ABS could not cover the entire house.

From a networking and configuration standpoint, the second ABS is handled as though it were just another computer. Its functions are restricted in that it does not distribute IP addresses. In fact, its IP address was assigned by the first ABS. It is also not configured as a network unto itself: I assigned it the same network name and password as the first ABS so that the portables can "roam." They will automatically select the ABS with the strongest signal.

Are you basically doing something similar on a larger property?

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 11-27-2002, 09:20 AM:

I didn't figure that anybody had used it, but I thought I'd try.

As for wireless, I'd give it up for a wired network or a fiber-LAN any day. Unfortunately Wireless is the only way I can get highspeed internet access for the summer... wireless link across the bay from the ISP that I do consulting for. 19.2 and 21.2 kbps just doesn't cut it.

EDIT:

I want to have full access to the ISP ethernet network at reasonable speeds. For the last seven years I've just used dial-up and I just can't stand it anymore... plus it's hard to resolve a problem when the RADIUS auth. server or the USR Total Control modem banks act up and won't allow me (or any of the thousands of customers) to dial in to fix it, forcing me to actually get dressed (because it only dies at 4:00am) and drive over there.

The added bonus of upto 11Mbps internet access is nice too. [Smile]

So anyway, here's what I am doing...

I live approximately 2.1 miles by air (measured with the GPS in my plane) from the office. I need to connect the two networks. A T1 costs too much ($8000 install, $800/month), I can't get DSL, ISDN, don't have cable within miles, satellite is kind of an option but also expensive for the usage I would incur. A wireless bridge seems to be the only way to go.

Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 11-27-2002, 09:51 AM:

Satellite sucks. Run. Run away fast. [Wink]

I have this at work and I get about 180k down and 30k up.

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 11-27-2002, 09:56 AM:

That's still about 90x/15x faster than what I get now (well not right now -- now I'm behind dual OC3's yippee!). Satellite is definetely a last resort, it would cost me a few hundred a month. [Frown]

Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 11-27-2002, 02:52 PM:

That would be 30kbps upload. Only 1.5x what you have now. My dialup here is almost twice that.

A few hundred a month? Ours is with Dish Network, as we have satellite tv for the lobby plus internet for about $100 a month. The exchange rate can't be that bad, can it? [Wink]

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 11-27-2002, 05:05 PM:

The last quote I got was $130 month for 1GB transfer, $0.10/MB afterwards. Currently I am using about 2.5GB just for the ISP stuff, but I guess I could cut back on backups a lot. So I guess it would be a couple hundred a month (plus 15% tax). As long as I throttled the access for everyone else in the house it might not be too bad. If I'm lucky this won't cost me anything anyway so it really becomes a non-issue. I'd sure prefer having a full 11Mbit connection direct to the internal LAN though.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 11-27-2002, 05:12 PM:

You should just check out the awesome speeds of AOL version 8! Nothing and I do mean nothing beats out the speed of AOL's incredible new software running over a phone line. [Roll Eyes]

Posted by Mike Williams (Member # 1140) on 11-28-2002, 08:46 AM:

Maybe you would want to change the factory settings to a Linksys access point. Check out this page: http://www.pasadena.net/aprf/

This page has the SNMP commands to increase the range of them. Appearently, those Linksys access points are capable of a lot more power/range than they are set for. You sure won't find these commands in the owners manual! [evil]

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 11-28-2002, 11:51 AM:

quote:
I live approximately 2.1 miles by air (measured with the GPS in my plane) from the office.

Do all Canadians own planes just like other people have cars to cover the vast distances? Do you fly to work?

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 11-28-2002, 12:16 PM:

There are only about 62,000 licensed pilots in Canada. This works out to roughly 0.2% of the population. I do however try to fly anywhere that would take longer than 3 hours by car. Having a 2000' runway in my side yard while growing up probably made it more likely that I would be one of the 0.2%. [Smile]

I do fly to school once in a while.

I've also been known to 'fly' to work in my car after sleeping in (usually after a long Thursday night of multiple 'test runs').

I also fly to my neighbors house once in a while. He lives about 3 blocks away. I don't think too many other people do that though. It's certainly not the fastest way, by the time you check the plane over.