"Jeff Allison" wrote > Gregory Forrest wrote: > > It seems that many people are having problems with 802.11b coverage. What > > kind of equipment are you all running for your access points? Many > > consumers don't realize that there are major and significant differences in > > the range performance between various access point manufacturers. One key > > rule in wireless - you get what you pay for. Keep in mind that most > > Linksys, Netgear, Belkin, etc. consumer-grade units have transmit power > > levels of about 30 milliwatts, and need a signal at their receiver of > > about -82 dBm in the reverse direction for adequate performance. But you > > can purchase AP's for about $120 that provide 200 milliwatts and only > > need -91 dBm of received signal levels. These can provide four-times the > > range, or much higher reliability on short paths. The high transmit power > > can also help overcome interference (i.e., Microwwave ovens). > > I don't know about the specs, but I can throw in some anecdotal evidence > on the behavior of different APs. I used to run a Netgear AP that > suffered tremendously from noise. It couldn't deal with the microwave > at all, and the 2.4Ghz phone was just as bad. When I replaced the > Netgear with an SMC Barricade I found the interference problems just > went away. To be fair, we use a 5.8 Ghz phone most of the time now, but > we have the same microwave and it's no problem. > > So in my particular environment there was a definite difference in > behavior with different AP's. I still get the occasional dropout on the > SB, but I'm not so sure that's a network problem. > > - Jeff >
Perhaps the two AP's had different default channels set? If you never tried adjusting the channels for best coverage then different default channels would potentially explain this dramatic difference in performance. _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
