$50 versus a $250 wireless AP

H

Hunterzyph

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 23, 2005
Messages
159
I've been working with wireless networking for four or five years now for residential and SMB. Proxim and Sonicwall AP's at the high end, Apple, Linksys, Netgear, Dlink, Belkin, Buffalo at the low-end. In a couple of situations I've run into some really nasty wireless interference, whereby most low-end options just do not cut the mustard as it were. In most situations I will:

Change channels from 1 to 6, 6 to 11, or 11 to 1.
Increase the mW output if it is an option
Setup additional wired AP's on separate channels.

In one situation I threw in the towel and bought a SonicPoint. For $250 I was a bit hesitant...but I've not once in the last *year* had a single reported issue (over 25 AP's around it). So what makes that AP so special? I've got a nice fancy Airport Express I have to power cycle daily, a Buffalo that drops signals randomly for 5 seconds, and Linksys WRT54G that has been running non-stop for 3 years without a single hiccup (in a low-interference area).

So what makes that $250 AP that much better than the $50 AP? Overall quality? Error correcting mechanisms? Is there something between the low-end and the high-end that meets my needs? Is it just luck?
 
It's got to do with several factors -

Reliability

Quality of components (which determines longevity)

Hardware/software options


I have a perfect example of when it would be more appropriate to use a "higher-end" wireless AP.

We've used 3COM NBX phones here and wanted to make them work across a wireless link. On the surface they appear to be simple IP phones.

Anything on the low end, be it from Linksys, Belkin, Netgear, etc simply wouldn't work at all. THe phones would sit there looking for the server and never boot. Data moved just fine across the link. It turns out that these phones work at Layer 2, and use a non-standard (i.e. not TCP/UDP/ICMP, etc) packet, with a type number of 0x8868. The low end wireless AP's drop the nonstandard packets.

We bought "enterprise grade" Outdoor Wireless Bridge's, and the phones booted right up.
 
Connections,

Seen a 3COM hold 40 laptops with no noticed speed decrease.
 
reliability, support, and components makes a huge difference. I've deployed AP's for camp grounds, small towns, and conventions before for events and we never had issues with any of the Cisco AP's we used. At home, with a linksys/motorola router i have to reboot once a week.
 
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