Re: [BAWUG] cisco ripping me off?

[Matt Monaco]

By no means am I a pro in the wireless field, but my last company started out with Karlnet bridges to two buildings around 4 years ago.  When one of them started failing we replaced it with two Cisco 340 Bridges.  It worked for at least 1 1/2 years with only the occasional reboot (maybe 4 times total).  It was a short link though - just across the street.   At the company I am currently working for we have 2 pair of 350's connecting our office to our warehouse around a hill - 2.3 and 2.7 mile links.  Everything works great at 11Mbps, with the two bridges on seperate frequencies.  Neither link has completely clear freznel zone, but it dosn't seem to affect them.  In fact, the only problem i have ever had is that it seems someone is Jamming one of the frequencies on occasion (100% carrier busy on 2412, that i have seen so far.)   I also have a link running about 800 feet using directional antennas through an outside wall, a fence,  a tree and part of a house with a Cisco 340 card and AP - it's only running at 1Mbps, but it works.  It wasn't my intention to do this, but it filled a temporary need, and i had the hardware laying around.   If i was only a home user i think i would rather play with some Linksys equipment, but for a business class network - even for a small company like us with 10 employees - i would find it hard to recommend anything but Cisco.  I'm also biased - i have been working with cisco equipment for 8 years, and i haven't used much else in the wireless world, but it's nice to wake up in the morning and not worry if my companies warehouse can't print sales orders because the wireless network isn't working.   Matt