802.11a questions

[KENT EITZMANN]

With all the talk of 802.11a products on the near horizon, I'm wondering about Cisco's plan for this technology. Will there be support right away for speeds less then 54Mbs? (I hear the max will be at 90ft). (Are other speeds in the standard ?)

Is Cisco thinking of making a Hybrid AP that will support both 2.4Ghz & 5Ghz ?

Is there any time frame for Cisco releasing any 802.11a products ?

I found the following article interesting, http://www.commweb.com/article/COM20010424S0001

I'm wondering if Cisco has the same view, or do they

think 802.11a will take off sooner.

Sorry for the mulitple questions ...

Thanks

[a-vazquez]

One thing I’ve seen with Cisco is they really don’t talk about technology trends they’re following until they release a product.

[dladen]

I have been told by a Cisco rep that they will be seperate products. If you invest today, you will have to reinvest tomorrow.

Have you heard of 802.11g? Based on 802.11b but doubles the speed. Still uses the same 2.4Ghz frequency. I wonder if that will be a firmware upgrade?

DAn

[ED CARMODY]

I doubt that it will be a firmware upgrade. The modulation would likely have to be different, requiring a different radio, but I don't know.

[ccie]

802.11g will be using OFDM modulation which most likely will be a simple upgrade of firmware. 802.11a is likely to kick the rear of 802.11g for reasons like 8 non-overlapping channels instead of 3, and vastly increased speed (up to 54Mbps instead of 22Mbps). Atheros will be selling these 2-chip 802.11a sets to almost every WLAN vendor out there very shortly. You can check out a little more about 802.11a at http://www.atheros.com/AtherosRangeCapacityPaper.pdf

[jeff]

Yes, there is support for the following speeds:

6, 9, 12, 18, 24, 36, 48, and 54 Mbps. The actual 802.11a standard only requires 6, 12, and 24 Mbps speeds. Many vendors are also planning to implement a special "turbo" mode which will allow data rates of 108 Mbps using 2 channels instead of 1 per radio.

As far as Cisco making a Hybrid AP for 802.11a and 802.11b support, they probably will since other companies are already advertising this feature (Intermec is the best known).