FAQ

Who owns the technology for the access point that we use? Are we tied into one source? The technology used in our mobile wireless lab is based on the industry standard IEEE 802.11a, b, and g. A consortium named WECA (Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance) proposed a standard for inter-operability of wireless devices called WiFi (Wireless Fidelity). Most manufacturers of wireless products are members of WECA and their products are WiFi compatible. Who installs it? Generally, the client. How close does a notebook have to be to send/receive? Depends on the speed and the environment. At 11Mbit speeds, the maximum distance is about 100 ft. indoors, and about 300 ft. outdoors. At higher speeds, the distance decreases. Is it line of sight? This technology uses radio waves so it is not line of sight. Can the signal go through walls/buildings? Yes, it can go through walls and buildings, but it also depends on what the wall is made of or what is in the wall. Walls with sheet metal covering may reflect the signals and the radio waves will not penetrate it. Also walls with lots of wiring and poor wiring insulation may cause interference and a degradation of signal, hence poor performance. Do radio signals/intercoms interfere with the signal? Generally, no. The wireless LAN operates in the 2.4-2.5GHz range, which was set aside by the FCC for wireless communication purposes. However, newer technologies (such as those based on Bluetooth) will operate in this frequency range, which may create problems in the future. There is a debate currently going on between the proponents of Bluetooth and those of IEEE802.11 regarding this possible problem and its effects. Household appliances, especially microwave ovens, may create interference with the wireless communication. Is special wiring or know-how needed to install? The only physical wiring will be attaching the access point to the existing network. This requires some knowledge of the existing network, but it doesn't really involve stringing wires across a room or building. Who will set up the wireless network? There are two parts to setting up the network. One, you need to set up the notebooks to communicate with the access point and two, you must set up the access point to communicate with the existing network. The installation of drivers and enabling wireless capability is performed at the factory. Customer must set up access point on-site. Can legacy notebooks be used? The basic requirement is a notebook that has a PCMCIA slot and is capable of running Windows 95 or better. There is always the possibility that incompatibilities will arise, but we have tested the cards with all our current notebook offerings and they function fine. Can you mix and match notebooks? Yes, as long as the basic requirements are met. Who do you contact if the "wireless network" crashes? If the wireless NIC doesn't work? Tech support will be able to handle these calls. Call Tangent Tech Support. Are there performance benefits to wireless? Is it faster? Cheaper? Last longer? Even though a wireless card costs more than its wired card counterpart, there is money to be saved in hard-wiring a network. To wire a classroom for 30 drops can cost anywhere from $2000 to $5000. As for performance, while the notebooks can communicate to each other at 11Mbps (peer to peer) when they use the wired LAN (such as when they connect to the Internet or attach to a server), the access point becomes a bottleneck. The more users that connect through an access point, the slower the connection becomes for everybody. Maximum bandwidth of the access point is 11Mbit for 802.11b and 54Mbit for 802.11a/g: one user will get the full connection, 2 users will get half each, 4 users one quarter, and so on. In reality about 15 users connected to one access point will see speeds similar to a DSL connection. That is why we recommend that for installations of more than 15-18 notebooks a second access point be considered so that the load can be distributed evenly.