RE: A quick Ethernet/Wireless straw poll please

[ian.bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Thanks everyone.

>From the replies it is a 100% wired interface then.

USB is not an option for these as I think to run Ethernet interfaces the=20
USB controller needs to be a host rather than a slave. If this is the case=
=20
then this is very difficult to achieve in embedded hardware produced at=20
home. Same goes for PCMCIA both with hardware and the necessary coding=20
around supporting it. This is after all only a poor little 128kbyte
micro=20
running at 14MHz with minimal resources. I would guess that a CF card=20
would suffer all the same problems.

By the time any of the above solutions had been designed, built, coded and=
=20
hardware bought I suspect there would be very little difference in cost to=
=20
the 80 quid plug it in and go embedded version.

Connecting external wireless hardware to the RJ45 port is fine although=20
products to do this are clumsy and not really cheap. I don't think an=20
access point would work for this but I am not an expert here.

Another question
How about a 10/100 interface. I had some chap from the States take a sharp=
=20
breath at _only_ 10Mbit saying that all new PC's over there are now=20
100/1000. Any thoughts? Basically these units would have to plug into a=20
switch or similar to reduce the throughput. Does anyone see this as an=20
issue over here in good old blighty?

Ian







"Paul Gordon" <paul@xxxxxxx>
12/11/2004 10:43
Please respond to ukha_d

=20
To:     <ukha_d@xxxxxxx>
cc:     (bcc: Ian Bird/CV/Novartis)
Subject:        RE: [ukha_d] A quick Ethernet/Wireless straw poll p=
lease



Hi Ian.

Couple of thoughts.

Personally, I'd always try to use a wired rather than a wireless I/F=20
whenever & wherever possible, and would only want to use wireless if
there=
=20
*really* wasn't any other way...

>From a flexibility & manufacturing POV, wouldn't it be better for
you to=20
just leave your device with a single wired interface, since anyone can=20
then connect that to an external wireless adapter if they wanted to.=20

Plus, given your projected price point, it seem as though it would=20
actually be cheaper for the end user to add their own off-board wireless=20
adapter; (after all, access points can be bought for as little as=20
=A320-odd)...

As an alternative, rather than providing a built-in wireless interface,=20
couldn't you perhaps consider fitting either a PCMCIA or USB interfaces to=
=20
the board, and would this be significantly cheaper than fitting
wireless?=20
- Again this would allow the end user to fit their own wireless interface,=
=20
and has the added benefit of giving them the choice of what wireless=20
interface they want to use...

This last point is my last comment on the flexibility aspect... - we all=20
know that current wireless hardware isn't necessarily 100% compatible=20
across all vendors.. - Different WiFi chipsets have interoperability=20
issues, certain manufacturers introduce proprietary features yadya-yada...=
=20
If you design in a wireless interface into the product, you are imposing=20
that choice on the end user, and potentially opening yourself up for=20
increased support burden when users can't get your particular flavour of=20
wireless to work on their flavour of wireless network...

Paul G.






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