Differences between the Aironet 340 and 350 workgroup bridges

[Jon-Paul.Anderson]

I've looked through the documentation and the only difference I can find is that the 340 has a 30mW transmit power, while the 350 has 100mW. Is that the only difference? Are they both compatible with other manufacturer's 802.11b cards and access points?

[ED CARMODY]

The workgroup bridges are NOT compatible with any access points other than Cisco's. They will not talk with wireless cards, they only talk to wired clients (through the RJ45 Ethernet interface)and Cisco Aironet Access Points (through the radio interface).

The above holds true for the 340 (definitely) and the 350 Series (I believe, details are sketchy).

[Jon-Paul.Anderson]

Cisco claims their bridges are WiFi certified. Are you saying only the br340 and br350 can talk with somebody else's AP?

[ED CARMODY]

You're confusing the AIR-BR340/350 with the AIR-WGB340/350.

One is an ethernet bridge (LAN to LAN), the other is a box to connect plain-vanilla ethernet hosts to a wireless infrastructure composed of Aironet access points.

Bridges do not talk to other APs. they talk to other bridges. APs cannot talk to APs, except in a repeater type configuration. Workgroup bridges only talk to APs. All "talking" being in the wireless sense.

All devices, except for the Workgroup Bridge, are WIFI. The WGB is proprietary.

[rsimhamb]

I am using a Cisco 350 workgroup bridge with a Linksys wap11 access point without any problems.

[jperrotte]

I have run into a situation where I have two buildings less than 1000' apart, where AP's were recommended on both sides.

Your statement that APs cannot talk with APs might concern me with this scenario.

My understanding from a conversation with a Cisco SE was that there was no difference, APs and bridges do the same thing, and the only difference was different TX/RX hardware.

This was somewhat validated through an IEEE conversation I read that stated the LMSC definition for a LAN included a 1000' distance limit. Therefore the limit was incorporated into the design, and distinction, with APs and Bridges.

So, I guess my question to you, and others is....

Can APs be used as bridges if the distance is under 1000'?