RE: Re: Wireless Access Point Advice Needed

["Phil Harris" <phil@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> > Hi,
> >
> >
> >
> > Finally about to take the leap into the world of wireless
> networking.  About
> > to purchase Sony laptop with built in 802.11g and looking for an
> access
> > point to connect to the rest of my network.
> >
> >
> >
> > Anyone got any suggestions/recommendations - what should I be
> looking for in
> > an AP for later use in a HA environment?

Check that none of your neighbours have Wireless AP's nearby ... Over the
last month three of my neighbours have started using wireless access points
to share their cablemodems with their kids without running network cables
and now my 54g network where I was getting a consistent 17Mbits/sec is now
lucky to get 2Mbits/sec - the actual throughput seems to vary between
280*K*bits/sec and about 1.6Mbits/sec usually. Unfortunately they are
spread
around various channels so I can't find anything that is now clear.

Unfortunately not only is this now far too slow for me to be able to stream
DVD wirelessly I also find that the data flow is so "choppy" as
to be al but
unuseable for anything other than email and IRC/MSN ... For example mapping
an ISO image as a virtual drive using Daemon Tools on my laptop (with the
ISO file on the server) usually takes about seven seconds - last weekend it
took over five minutes! I now have a very long network cable that I drag
around the house with me.

In fact my email (Outlook) just reported that my email server was
unobtainable when it did a scheduled check for new mail - this is *SOLELY*
down to the Wireless Network being so bolloxed ... If I chuck the lappy on
the wired network I have *NO* problems with emails or web pages timing out.

Unfortunately this is now so bad that I'm going to have to move to 802.11a
(5GHz) and pray that none of the neighbours are savvy enough to do the same
- I need to keep an 802.11b/g point anyway for my old lappy (which the wife
uses) and the iPronto! I also hope that I can just replace the 802.11b/g
mini-PCI card in my Sony VAIO with an 802.11a/b/g mini-PCI card (if I can
find one anywhere - haven't found anyone that does one yet) or an Intel
2100A 802.11a/b mini-PCI card otherwise.

Phil