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wireless routers or wireless access points

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Hi,
i need to put 3 wireless access points in a new warehouse and some workstations will be wired cat6 stations (about 35 PCs) and some on wireless. However I already have a cat6 LAN in the old building next to the new warehouse. The server room is in the old building and will stay there, i will send an Fiber to the new warehouse. I need to connect the network of the new warehouse with the old cat 6 LAN. I need 3 wireless spot in the new warehouse. I will use only 1 adsl line for the whole LAN (wired and wireless, old building and new warehouse).

Do i use 3 wireless routers or 3 access point in the new warehouse so that the 2 networks become one?
Can you explain the advantages of using access point in this case please? ?Can’t simple wireless routers do the job

Thank you very much for you help.

Topic

Clarifications

In reply to wireless routers or wireless access points

Clarifications

Access Points are what you need

In reply to wireless routers or wireless access points

An AP is a mac-layer bridge, which is what you need on a normal single flat network.

You DO NOT want a router for several reasons:

A router would introduce the use of NAT between external and external networks. NAT complicates DHCP considerably, adds delay, and introduces other issues such as DNS forwarding delay.

Coinicidentally, I helped to engineer a WLAN warehouse installation in Dunkirk (sorry I meant Dunkerque). Things went marginally better than it did for Ramsay, there.

On the other hand, if you are on a tight budget, It IS possible to use a WLAN router as an AP, just give it a static address, connect to the LAN via it’s LAN port (not the WAN port), and disable the DHCP server in the unit.

What you really need is an ‘enterprise class’ AP that supports features like power over ethernet, SNMP management, etc.

Power over ethernet will save you lots of money and make life easier, since it’s a lot easier to reset a locked-up device by visiting the wiring closet versus getting on a 30 foot ladder to unplug it. Plus you don’t always find an electrical outlet where you need to install your AP.

Re

In reply to Access Points are what you need

thanks robo_dev. Do you know a good enterprise classe AP which is not too expensive ?
Thanks

Well, the top one is Cisco, but also Symbol, Linksys, Nortel, Proxim

In reply to Re

I hate to be a Cisco-snob, but the Cisco gear is rock solid and has every type of feature you could dream of.

Linksys makes some lower cost APs that support POE. (WAP 200)

Symbol is now owned by Motorola and their stuff is pretty good.

Nortel and Proxim also make some neat stuff

Definitely look into a mesh-based solution:

Nortel, Cisco, and Motorola/Symbol makes some interesting ‘mesh-based’ WLAN gear that uses 2.4GHZ for the devices and 5.8GHZ for the connection of the APs to the LAN.

The BIG problem with APs, especially in large spaces, is that you need to run ethernet cables hundreds of feet to get to the AP, and in a manufactuing environment, you often have to run the ethernet cabling in conduit. The mesh solution solves that problem.

http://www.wlanmall.com/WLANmall-Mesh-Summary.pdf

http://www.upperside.fr/wlanmesh2007/wlanmesh2007intro.htm

http://www.linksys.com
http://www2.nortel.com/go/product_index.jsp
http://www.motorola.com
http://www.linksys.com
http://www.cisco.com

How to configure the three WAP 200

In reply to Well, the top one is Cisco, but also Symbol, Linksys, Nortel, Proxim

I am going for 3 Linksys wap200 to setup the wireless LAN. How do i configure it? Must take 1 wap200 and use it as Access Point and the other 2 as repeaters?
Or can i use the 3 wap200 as three Access Points. Can i do roaming in both senario?
Thanks.

[Author]

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