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Go wireless with Proxim and Motorola Solutions

802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g, Blue Tooth

Did you know that there is more than one class of wireless product out there?  Did you know that many of these technologies share the same bandwidth (frequency range)?  Did you know that some of these components can not co-exist in the same area at the same time?  Did you know that some of these products can co-exist, provided you follow some basic guidelines?  Did you know that even if you deploy WEP (an encryption protocol) on your 802.11b network that your transmissions are still un-secure?  There are viable and affordable solutions to all of the aforementioned issues, you should find out what they are.

There are benefits as well as drawbacks to each product and each product class.  There are also many vendors in the market today.  Find out where and what your issues could be before you begin to deploy your wireless solution.  Once you choose to go wireless consider the product categories and trade-offs below.

802.11

The first of the IEEE "standardized" wireless technologies.  The 802.11 products are solid, reliable, and affordable.  Although the products in this category are frequency hoppers, they DO NOT inter-operate with other products in the 2.4 Ghz ISM band.

• Numerous vendors with inter-operable products
• Solid and good performing products
• Frequency hopping provides reasonable noise immunity
• Very scalable due to large number of channels
• In-expensive (when compared to installing a cable plant)
• 1.6 Mb/Sec performance with fallback to 800Kb/Sec

802.11b

Lucent and its' partners wanted to beef up the bandwidth of 802.11.  The result of this effort brought about the second generation of the IEEE "standardized" wireless technologies.  The 802.11b products are now in the adoption and growth stage.  Several vendors have teamed up and formed the interoperability group WIFI.

• Numerous vendors with inter-operable products (WIFI compliant)
• Solid and good performing products
• Direct Sequence provides low field of RF energy which allows for denser user populations in a single cell 
• Tough to scale due to limited 3 channel implementation
• Pricing comparable to Frequency Hoppers
• WEP Encryption Capability (but the media is not really secure)
• 11 Mb/Sec performance with fallback to 5.5Mb, 2 Mb, and 1Mb/Sec

Blue Tooth

One of the third generation of the "standardized" wireless technologies.  The main focus on the implementation hinges on something known as a personal area network or PAN.  The PAN intent is to provide peer-peer networks for groups of up to 12 users within a range of ~30 feet (10 Meters).

There are a small number of products available now and the list is growing monthly.  Medical Technology is currently exploring and evaluating offerings from Motorola and Hitachi.  Watch this web page for more information.  Note that the technology is not mature enough yet and Microsoft has pulled support of BlueTooth from its operating systems until a later date.

802.11a

A technology that pushes wireless bandwidth into the 20+Mb/Sec range.  There are a reasonable number of available products for consumers.  There is also an assortment of dual-band products that offer 802.11a in the 5Ghz band while offering 802.11b in the 2.4 Ghz band.  Take the time to research your selection.  Each offering has its advantages and disadvantages.  Some products trade-off performance versus dual-band operation while others trade-off performance versus distance or radius of a cell.  Contact us for a site survey and thorough evaluation of your intended deployment.

MISCELLANEOUS

High-gain and directed antennas such as YAGI or dish-type antennas can be deployed to make better use of the radio signal and decrease its susceptibility to noise.  You should consult with our RF engineers before pursuing solutions in this category.

If you are having radio interference problems or rogue radios on your network contact us to hunt down the offenders.  We can sweep your facility with tools ranging from a spectrum analyzer to site surveys with directional antennas (fox hunting).

Watch this page for other information as the products become available.

Contact us for assistance with all your wireless and RF needs.

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Last modified: March 18, 2008