[X Newbies] Two question: AP and Entourage

[Vincent Cayenne]

At 8:12 PM -0400 7/24/03, Watrat wrote:
>The first question is in regards to wireless access points; can someone
>suggest a good one to work with a PC and a mac powerbook with airport
>extreme?  At work, I bought a Belkin wireless router 802.11B and its good
>when I am near the router, but very sketchy when I work my way away from it.

Useful info: Airport Extreme is Apple's name for their implementation 
of the 802.11g standard for wireless communication. 802.11g is 
capable of faster communication than 802.11b while providing backward 
compatibility with 802.11b.

More specific to your question: If you have turned on the security 
such that your wireless network is password-protected, the range is 
adversely affected. How far do you get before performance is 
"sketchy"? Do you have any other devices using the 2.4 GHz band? 
Microwave, wireless phone? Did you leave the Belkin set to default 
settings or have you changed security, channel, etc.?

I have used Siemens, SMC, NetGear, Linksys and D-Link gear, receiving 
similar range and performance from all. I used an SMC Barricade 
7004AWBR for about a year with excellent results - whole house 
coverage from PowerBooks (Wallstreets and Lombards with Lucent 
Orinoco cards) and from two Airport-equipped iBooks. When I added a 
TiBook with an Airport card I simply could not get a good connection 
from one bedroom. I added a $30 Siemens device (I'm using only its 
wireless capability) at another wired point in my home and now again 
have whole house coverage going out to the end of the back yard (the 
SMC covers me out to the opposite sidewalk at front).

These devices have now gotten so affordable that I use a Linksys for 
its router, the SMC as a Wireless Access Point (WAP) and switch, and 
the Siemens as a second WAP. The multifunction devices are less 
expensive than the dedicated WAPs!
-- 
'tis as said. [Reality is defined by being described]