On 11/11/2011 11:58 AM, Coehoorn, Joel wrote: >> If we could provide great / sufficient / pervasive "non-wired" > coverage using >> $40 AP instead of $400 Cisco AP, resident might not want to bring in their >> own $40 AP. > > Actually, you can do that. Those cheap $40 access points can be easily > reconfigured to act as a thick access point by just turning off dhcp, > setting a static IP in the correct range, and connecting your uplink > line to a LAN port rather than the WAN port. Spend about $100 on a > nice buffalo that supports dd-wrt with a customized config file ready to > load, and you can get something close to a vendor system for less than > 1/4 the price. > > Of course, that means doing a lot of leg work yourself: configuring > access points, setting up subnets/zones, multiple ssids, security, and > every change means a manual deployment to individual access points. I'd > love to see a feature added to dd-wrt that allows polling a config > server for those. > > But the really big thing you give up here is the reporting. You can make > up for some of that with existing syslog or gateway reporting tools, but > some of the information you'd get from a controller-based solution is > just not replaceable. >
Slightly off-topic, but are there any consumer level APs that support Power-over-Ethernet? That would be the huge sticking point for me, and I'm sure I'm not alone. Most people haven't run AC to their ceiling data drops. -- Matt Gracie (716) 888-8378 Information Security Administrator [email protected] Canisius College ITS Buffalo, NY http://www2.canisius.edu/~graciem/graciem_public_key.gpg ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
