TN230 - Off-the-Shelf Solutions for 802.11b Wireless Networking - Rabbit - #1

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022-0078 Rev. B www.rabbit.com 1 TN230 Off-the-Shelf Solutions for 802.11b Wireless Networking This document describes some off-the-shelf solutions for using wireless networking with Rabbit products. Although these solutions have certain limitations, they may be useful in some circumstances. What Wireless Solutions Exist? Currently, the most popular methods for achieving wireless networking are with 802.11b and 802.11a. Bluetooth is another common alternative, although it is generally shorter-range and has not achieved the widespread commercial success of 802.11b. 802.11b operates in the 2.4 GHz spectrum and offers data rates of up to 11 Mbps. 802.11a operates in the 5 GHz spectrum and has data rates of up to 54 Mbps. Some vendor-specific solutions offer higher data rates, but these rates are usually not interoperable with other vendors’ products. 802.11b products usually claim ranges of up to 300 feet indoors and about 1000 feet outdoors, but these figures are subject to such concerns as number of obstructions and interference. 802.11a’s range tends to be slightly less (although it is capable of higher bandwidth). Bandwidth will decrease as the range increases. Unfortunately, there is no substitute for experimentation in testing the range of a wireless solution. Wireless Bridging A number of wireless networking products are currently on the market that can be used with Rabbit solutions. In particular, some, but not all, wireless access points are capable of “wireless bridging,” which allows the bridging of two wired networks with a wireless connection. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to determine which products support wireless bridging. Even looking for the term “bridging” in the product documentation is not always helpful, since wireless access points are often described as bridging a wired and a wireless network. If the documentation explicitly discusses bridging two wired networks via a wireless connection, then the product should work for the purposes of connecting one or more Rabbits wirelessly. If the product is advertised as a wireless broadband router (usually with a 4 or 8 port hub included), it probably does not support wireless bridging.