Wireless router question.

[bob at sinister.com (Bob Keyes)]

I've been very active in the wireless arena for a while now, and here's
what I've concluded based upon people's comments to mailing lists:

FORGET support from SMC, Linksys, and the lesser known vendors. They are
basically front operations for Taiwan based manufacturers who, even if
they could understand your language, don't have the time to deal with you.

The best 802.11 gear is made by Cisco, closely followed by Lucent. Support
here is also better. While bleeding-edge gear from these vendors is
expensive, trailing edge stuff can be quite reasonable. For instance, the
older generation Cisco AIR-PCM-342 cards can be had for as low as $40 and
are vastly superior to the generic, prism2 chipset cards that are sold by
the 'generic' vendors. There's a lot of the Lucent Orinoco cards available
cheap as well, though some with no WEP or only 40 bit WEP. These are nice
because you can get a cable to easily attach an external antenna, for less
than $20.

For access points, the Lucent RG-1000 has been discontinued, but is still
supported and a package of access point and one client card is available
from http://www.invictusnetworks.com/itm00005.htm -- I am going to be
ordering one of these and will let you know how well it works. They have a
good reputation, and ....WILL RUN LINUX!

I've dropped this URL before, but I'll do it again here because I think
it's appropriate: http://www.bawia.org -- Boston Area Wireless Internet
Alliance -- a mailing list and web resource that might help answer some of
your 802.11b questions.



On Wed, 6 Feb 2002, Kent Borg wrote:

> On Wed, Feb 06, 2002 at 01:32:11PM -0500, Jerry Feldman wrote:
> > Does anyone actually have any real opinions on one over the other. Both support 128 bit
> > encryption IEEE 802.11b compatible.
>
> Remember, 802.11b WEP security has been broken.  It doesn't matter
> what length key you use, the protocol chooses the keys poorly and
> there is a free cracking tool out there that cracks WEP (Airsnort?).
>
> Go ahead and use WEP if you like, but put something secure on top of
> it, like SSL or SSH.  There are going to be drive-by-spammers, don't
> let them blacken your reputation.
>
>
> -kb, the Kent who hasn't figured out the details of setting up a
> secure 802.11b system.
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