Orinoco Cards

[Marc Sira]

> >Dialup is slow enough that it's already the bottleneck...It might slow down a
> >slowish computer to use WEP, though (like the 2400).
> 
> Might? I just said that it did.

Oh, I believe that you've observed that. It might not be WEP that's causing
it though, or if it is it might be an artifact of the driver and card you're
using (possibly someone else might not see the effect). Even 128-bit WEP isn't
all that arduous, and with the amount of traffic a dialup link on the other
side could carry I'd be surprised if WEP was really having a significant
effect on most computers (since not much data is flowing, not much needs to be
encrypted or decrypted). If it is I'd blame a poor driver implementation 
rather than the 2400's speed. In fact the CPU in whatever wireless access
point you're using is probably much slower than the 2400. Some of those do
slow down when using WEP, but only at much higher speeds than dialup (or
even cable or DSL - I've only really seen that effect with local LAN traffic).

btw, when you say it causes a slowdown, do you mean that you get lower
throughput over the wireless link, or that the 2400 feels slower to use?

> And, using WEP lowers the wireless 
> connection's signal strength, at least according to monitoring software. 
> Why should that be?

It shouldn't, and probably isn't - more likely it's an artifact of the
monitoring software (or the driver). Those little signal meters aren't very
reliable.

-- 
Marc Sira		|	toh at victoria.tc.ca
If you can't play with words, what good are they?