Subject: IETF Wireless

From: Stuart Cheshire <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 May 2000 12:25:05 -0700

There's a good chance I may be able to persuade Apple to donate a bunch 
of 11Mb/s IEEE 802.11 Wireless/Ethernet bridges (the things we call 
"AirPort") to IETF, on a permanent basis, for the meetings.

Any interest? How many would we want? A couple for the terminal room and 
one each per meeting room?

These are absolutely standard 11Mb/s IEEE 802.11DS base stations, not 
some proprietary Apple thing. PC users can get 802.11DS cards from 
companies like Lucent: <http://www.wavelan.com/>

Lucent's web site provide a list of resellers: 
<http://www.wavelan.com/contact/>

I have heard good reports about Brumleynet. They sell 11Mb/s WaveLAN 
cards for $160: <http://www.brumleynet.com/>

Stuart Cheshire <[email-masked]>
 * Wizard Without Portfolio, Apple Computer

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From: "Ole J. Jacobsen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 May 2000 13:13:28 -0700 (PDT)

"...not some proprietary Apple thing."

I can verify that this is true, so true in fact that if you take an
AirPort station apart you will find a Lucent Silver WaveLAN card inside.
Only downside with AiPort is:

- You need a Macintosh to configure it

- It has no way to add extenal antennas to boost signal.

These are not necessarily show stoppers given the amount of Mac geeks
at IETFs and if you have enough of them I guess the antenna isn't
much of an issue.

Now, I have heard mentioned that the AirPort has a limit to the number
of users it will support, but I don't know if this is true or how it
compares to the usual kit we use at IETF meetings.

Ole

Ole J. Jacobsen 
Editor and Publisher
The Internet Protocol Journal
Cisco Systems, Office of the CSO
Tel: +1 408-527-8972
e-mail: [email-masked]
URL: http://www.cisco.com/ipj

* See you at INET 2000, Yokohama, Japan July 18-21
  http://www.isoc.org/inet2000

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From: "Derrell D. Piper" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 May 2000 13:44:58 -0700

> Only downside with AiPort is:

Also, this page:

      http://www.msrl.com/airport-gold/

...has information about upgrading an Airport to a Lucent Gold card with
128-bit encryption.

> - You need a Macintosh to configure it

There is a Windows-based configuration utility that I've seen used to
configure the Airport sucessfully.  See the "Karlbridge configurator for
Windows" link on the page listed above.

Derrell

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From: Dirk-Willem van Gulik <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 May 2000 22:59:06 +0200 (CEST)

> companies like Lucent: <http://www.wavelan.com/>

I can vouch for this; they work 100% fine with the Nortel, Baystack and
Fallaron cards (which each work on freebsd 3.x and above).

DW

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From: Jon Malis <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 27 May 2000 09:35:38 -0400

>Windows" link on the page listed above.

To my knowledge, there is a Java-based AirPort admin tool (at least 
for PPP connections and changing IP info) which works on any computer 
which supports Java.

--jon

Jon Malis
Independent Network Consultant
Malis Consulting
[email-masked], [email-masked], AIM: JonMalis
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From: Jon Malis <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 27 May 2000 09:36:51 -0400

>- It has no way to add extenal antennas to boost signal.

You can, it just requires making a small "incision" in its side and a 
voided warranty.  (See: http://www.macintouch.com/airportantenna.html 
For More Info)

>compares to the usual kit we use at IETF meetings.

I'm not definitely sure, but I have used at least 10 'books connected 
and active simultaneously on my home LAN

--jon

Jon Malis

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From: "R. A. Hettinga" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 27 May 2000 11:19:40 -0400

> voided warranty.  (See: http://www.macintouch.com/airportantenna.html

This echoes our experiences at the Financial Cryptography conference this
February <http://fc00.ai/> on Anguilla, which, at the moment, is crawling
with WaveLANs...

So, here we were, on a 50-foot catamaran off Prickly Pear Key, 15 people on
the boat drinking cocktails, snorkelling, various half-dressed attractive
people taking in the sun, etc., meanwhile, halfway up the flag lanyard
there's an antenna, and at the end of that antenna is my Mac Powerbook with
a WaveLan, using IP NetRouter wired to an Apple Airport Basestation with a
hub on it, and 5 or 6 geeks down below plugged into the hub, going, "Kewl.
We can get Slashdot out here". Coulda left the Base Station out of it,
frankly, as nobody else had a WaveLan card but me...

Cheers,
RAH
Who was afraid to take power tools to the plastic inside one of his base
stations, but has now changed his mind...
-- 
-----------------
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: [email-masked]>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'