I have played with one of these. The system I saw had a standard PCMCIA
or PCI NIC that the OS basically just saw as an ethernet NIC. It had a
range of a few hundred feet inside a coroporate building (it would not go
through a floor). As far as throughput, it did around 3 Mb.
Here is an excellent URL on this subject. It compares current "spread
spectrum" technologys for wireless lans.
http://www.proxim.com/learn/whiteppr/select.shtml#compare
Carric Dooley
COM2:Interactive Media
http://www.com2usa.com
On Mon, 21 Jun 1999, Randall, Mark wrote:
> I've been curious about wireless LANs myself for some time. The HomeBase
> near my house uses some sort of wireless LAN. I don't know what, but the
> POS machines and any computer stations I see have this little antenna
> connecting to what looks similar to a BNC connector.
>
> I've been curious as to their transmission range and whether or not it would
> be possible to sniff the traffic. Knowing the frequency, one could
> certainly "hear" the transmissions, but what other mechanisms might be
> present to prevent a customer with a laptop "connecting" to their LAN?
>
> Anybody have any info on these kinds of nets?
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Sunday, June 20, 1999 5:42 AM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Firewall??!!
>
>
> Ok guys/gals... now after all the nice hot-air discussions about NT vs
> Uniks...
>
> ... can anybody tell me how I could protect a wireless LAN? *G*
>
> That's serious... we're looking into buying one of those wireless devices
> which
> will handle somewhere between 2 and 10 Mbps (best case though)... to connect
> a
> couple of remote offices.
>
> As far as I see I'm pretty cleartext through the air... and anybody with the
>
> right equipment could sniff the hell out of my traffic...
>
> So I guess something like this would be most sensible:
>
> One of my sites(main master site):
>
> [Main] [Encryp-] [ Fire ] [ Wire-]
> [ ]---[ tion ]---[ ]---[ less ]- - - T H I S - I S - A I R -
> [Site] [ box ] [ wall ] [device]
>
>
>
>
> [ WLAN ] [ Fire ] [Encryp-] [Customer]
> A I R - [ ]---[ ]---[ tion ]---[ ]
> [Device] [ wall ] [ box ] [ Site ]
>
>
>
> Well... hope it doesn't wrapp!!! ;-)
>
> Isn't that a bit too complicated? I mean it's great to have a free 2 - 10 Mb
>
> link to the customers (you pay somewhere around 14'000 sFr [1] monthly for a
> 2
> Mb link to the net) but having 3to4 boxes on every site is really not too
> cool.
>
> Can anybody suggest any good Wireless LAN manufacturer? Any suggestions to
> the
> scenario (yeah I know that most firewalls can encrypt traffic... this scheme
> is
> just schmematic *G*). I had a look at Lucent... however... they didn't had
> much
> pictures ;-)))
>
> Cheers
>
> Boris Pavalec [QPB]
> Network / System Engineer [MCSE]
> Highend Computing Systems
> Switzerland - Zuerich
>
> http://www.nt-admin.net
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>
>
> [1] Which is about 12'000$
>
> -
> [To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with
> "unsubscribe firewalls" in the body of the message.]
>
-
[To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with
"unsubscribe firewalls" in the body of the message.]
