[c-nsp] Wireless bridging

[Chris Cappuccio]

Michael Kaegler [Michael.Kaegler at marist.edu] wrote:
> 
> Cisco suggests otherwise. I should be using a 1400 AP on either end 
> of the bridge, then a 1200 AP for clients. With that much equipment, 
> cost is a factor.
> 
> Has anyone tried either of these configurations? Is the 1400 really necessary?
> 

I would imagine that cisco wants you to use a higher-bandwidth link for
your trunk and lower bandwidth links to your clients.  It makes more sense
than having an 802.11g client link and an 802.11b trunk.  If your trunk
radio's antenna and any of your client antennas are going to be close
together, you might consider using a different frequency (like 802.11a 5GHz)
for your trunks.  If you have antennas in close range within the same band
(say, 2.4ghz) on non-overlapping frequencies, the radios are still going to
interfere with eachother. (The radios are going to be overloaded with the
other traffic in the band and the radio's front-end AGC circuit will turn
down the receive gain far enough that it won't be able to hear normal 
signals, but this only becomes a problem when you have heavy traffic.)

> Other points of information:
> 1. I'm expecting low usage (Its hard to use a laptop in the sun)
> 2. Availability is a focus of this department. The network must be 
> available 24/7 in these remote areas.
> 3. We are not using multiple SSIDs/vlans for wireless.
> 4. We have about 150 1200s currently in production.
> 

"Low usage" means that no matter what you do, it will probably meet most
people's expectations.  Trunk on 5GHz and keep your APs at least 50 feet
apart and you should have excellent performance.

-- 
"The map is not the territory; the word is not the thing defined."