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Happy with 802.11b WLAN?

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by debate

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Are you happy with the 802.11b WLANs or have you found limitations in terms of speed, capacity, security, etc.? If you have found limitations, have you looked at other 802.11 standards, as discussed in this week's Wireless e-newsletter?

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by michaeljm

I recently installed an 802.11b WLAN in my home. I have a cable modem, and am using an SMC barricade router and SMC 802.11b Access Point. With my laptop, I now have access throughout my home, in the backyard, in the garage, etc. Reception and speed are excellent! The laptop normally maintains 11mb connection. Sometimes it may drop to 5mb at the outer reaches, but this is still more than fast enough for me (the cable connection is typically just 350kbps). To me, 802.11b seems like a wonderful thing ... is there anything I'm missing?

by shawn

What happens when your neighbor (who may be a savvy Wireless expert) realizes that he can "see" your wireless network, hop on, and use your nice big cable modem pipe to do some surfing of his own for free, Without you ever knowing it. Using 128-bitWEP? If he's good enough, he'll get that in about 15 minutes (with the right software) and get right back in. I know this is kindof involved and chances are it's not going to happen, but these are the very real security concerns that exist with this standard.

by shawn

I have to say, set up is a snap, and I love the way you can roam between access points, that's even easy to set up. Even security can be set up very easily. But I'm concerned about the vulnerablities. For instance, I think using MAC address security is a great thing, but then I find out that the MAC address can be cracked. I'm really hoping to know some details about some "REAL" security features that I can pursue to make my wireless network (at work) secure. I wouldn't be so concerned at home, but at work it's a different story. Any experience out there?

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