We have several bridge links in use, and have a history going back to Aironet (pre-Cisco days). For current small locations, the Cisco 1400 is very nice- but pricy compared to what you want to spend. The 1300 is also pricey, and we've had some issues with it. But the Cisco 1200 AP can work in bridging mode, and we have around a half-dozen pairs in service. These can be had on the secondary market fairly cheaply, and if you get your antennas, feed cable, and lightening protection from a place like Sparco Technologies, you'll pay a fraction of Cisco's prices for like-quality bits and pieces.
You should be able to put together a 54 Mbps bridge link using 1200 APs (secondary market) working in bridge mode with antenna hardware from Sparco Tech for under $1000. But you'll also need station cabling to each bridge location. Just make sure that you get 1200s with 11g radios- not 11b. If you want to go dirt cheap- get Linksys WRT54G routers, flash them with DD-WRT or the like, and they'll do bridging as well and still take the directional antennas- but I'd have a hard time standing behind this sort of thing in a production environment. -Lee Lee H. Badman Wireless/Network Engineer Information Technology and Services Syracuse University 315 443-3003 ________________________________ From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Lih-Er Wey Sent: Tuesday, March 10, 2009 5:55 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [WIRELESS-LAN] Seeking recommendation for wireless bridge product I need to bring network to a structure (2-story) in a field from a building (about 1000 feet away, 7-story). It does not need high bandwidth. I would like to hear any product recommendation from you. The budget range is under a $1000 for a pair of wireless bridge. I am more concern about the reliability and security sides of the product. By the way, does anyone have experience with NanoStation5 from Ubiquiti network? It is quite inexpensive ($160 a pair). Thanks! Lih-Er Wey Wireless Project, Network Management Academic Technology Services Michigan State University __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 3924 (20090310) __________ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
