Headlines:
This review looks at 802.2b wireless networking products.
At
IG, we spent a lot of money putting in network sockets throughout our building.
Like electricity sockets, the majority of these weren’t used but had to
be there in case we changed the layout of the office. How much better and cheaper if it had all been wireless?
Now several companies have come out with wireless networking solutions
that would make this possible. I
looked at two offerings: 3Com’s Airconnect and Intel’s Pro/Wireless 2011 to
see how suitable they would be for a small business.
Both
systems are physically similar and use the same networking standards (IEEE
802.11b to be specific) so they are interoperable. Like a cordless phone, they have a base station and a much smaller mobile
unit in the form of a card that plugs into each PC. The base stations are both smaller than a laptop and can be connected
into a physical network hub, for instance to connect them to a file server or
Internet connection. Each base station can handle traffic from up to 63 individual
PCs. The network cards themselves
are conventional credit-card sized PC Cards with a small bulge that sticks out
of the computer containing the transceiver. Both companies also do PCI cards that plug into desktop PCs but neither
company could supply one for review – they’re rarer than a clear head on new
year’s day.
At
first I had some trouble setting up the 3Com system. It was the first to arrive and I didn’t really give a lot of thought to
how it would work. I spent a
morning trying to get my two Toshiba laptops to talk to one another but they
absolutely refused. However, this
was more a problem with PC networking generally than the specific hardware.
The next day, I went back to basics. I set up a simple wired network using a 3Com OfficeConnect four-port
mini-hub, some bits of cable and conventional network cards. I then set up the proper protocols on all the machines and made sure they
actually worked properly. Once this
was done, it was easy to swap each wired network card for a wireless one and
everything worked first time. The
mini-hub came with a very thorough CD-based tutorial in setting up a network
which I think would have been very useful for a network neophyte and I think it
is an omission that the wireless kits didn’t come with something similar.
The Intel system was just as easy to set up and also worked without any
problems. Indeed the two looked so
similar that I did wonder whether they were, in fact, the same kit in different
boxes. In any case, there was
nothing to differentiate them in terms of size, performance, drivers or
capabilities.
Now
the technical stuff: these wireless systems can handle up to 11mb/s which is
about the same speed as most conventional networks but not nearly as fast as the
newer 100mb/s networks that we used at IG. However, the slower speed is okay for normal office use.
Performance degrades with distance and obstructions like walls but, in
ideal conditions; ranges of up to 300 feet are claimed. It is possible to install several base stations around a building and
roam from one to another seamlessly. On
both systems, data transmitted over the network can be encrypted for security
but, curiously, this is not the default option and you have to manually
reconfigure the base station to enable it.
Although
available as individual components, 3Com offer a wireless networking starter kit
containing everything you need to wire up three laptops. This costs about £900 (all prices exclude VAT) and each additional
network card costs £115. Although
this is more than a conventional network solution, it doesn’t take into
account any savings in cabling and hubs. Intel’s
base station costs £600 and each network cards costs about £120. You should probably plan on buying at least a mini-hub if you don’t
already have any network infrastructure so you can hook up file and print
servers. Mine was the simplest and
cheapest I could find and it cost £30.
I
write this on my laptop. There are
no wires connecting it to anything, yet I can access my ADSL Internet link
(thanks to Internet Connection Sharing built into Windows 98), print things to
my printer and save this file on my main desktop machine. It’s very cool and, at the same time, tidy and efficient.
If, in the future, PCs can be hooked up to next-generation mobile phones
the same way, this is a taste of the future and a very welcome one. For businesses today, especially businesses with under a few dozen
employees or in awkward and unwired buildings, wireless networking could be a
great benefit.
Websites
3Com: http://www.3com.com/mobile/wireless/index.html
Intel: http://www.intel.co.uk/network/products/wireless.htm
Writer