Discussion on:

Wireless LAN in the Arctic: A cool solution

And that he works for a company that cares enough about it's people to take on something like this.

One thing that is true about wireless though, positioning is critical. It's like playing with the antenna on a TV (does anyone use them anymore). A small move in one direction can make all the difference in the reception.

First let me say that this was a bad scenario for any consultant. I was called in to install a system after a previous consultant ordered all the gear and was let go (fired!).I had mixed results with the wireless gear provided by a home consumer oriented manufacturer. The technical support was terrible with 50 minute hold times on non-800 number support lines. I was given conflicting info on the gear that had been purchased by the techs I spoke to. Some of the network connections from stations at one end of a small 100meter office space were very unreliable. After getting 95% of the stations up reliably the system went down completely.I could cable into the wireless router/switch and logon but none of the previously working desktops or mylaptop could get any signal strength. I assumed that the wireless interface on the router died but got no real help from tech support. The customer gave up in disgust and on my advice got cat 5 cable installed. Turns out the previous consultant knewvery little about cabling (or anything else for that matter) and the wiring job was much more reasonable than the cost of the wirless nics ($120each) and other gear for a small 11 node network in a small office space.

I have been asking about networking a steel/concrete building and everyone has said wireless won't work because of the material. Now that I've heard it can work, I'm going to explore it further. Thanks so much for the info.

I live in suriname and work for a company which sets up wireless networks. I was wandering if I could get the tool from 3com to check my connections because we are having some problems. Maybe we need more AP's. Thanks

Clay Quartier