I think you will find that 802.11a (which operates on 5.7GHz) is going to be considerably more expensive for quite some time. Additionally, it's only faster over a much shorter distance and the rate will drop off much more quickly, at comparable distances, than it would on 2.4 GHz 802.11b. 802.11b is so cheap and so widely deployed, I couldn't consider anything else right now myself. Make sure you understand the terms of service agreement with your ISP w.r.t. giving access to other premises or users over your connection. The cablemodem people are particularly "concerned" about this. I would find an AP that allows connection of an external antenna easily since at some point you will probably find that you'll need to put a better antenna on it to give reliable access 'round the whole block. Chris On Friday (05/03/2002 at 12:20PM -0500), olearysheehy at goldengate.net wrote: > SETTING UP AN ACCESS POINT IN THE MIDWAY AREA > and HOW ABOUT THAT NEW 802.11b PROTOCOL? > I am going to be setting up an access point in the Midway area of St. Paul > primarily for use by folks on our block club. I'm going to try and come to the > meeting on Tuesday. I am interested in knowing whether anyone has > recommendations for AP hardware that is > > a)stable and robust and > b) relatively transparent ... easy to figure out and set up. > > SeattleWireless has positive references to SMC on their site. > > Also, I am seeing some stuff on 802.11a protocol. Supposed to be faster. That's > probably not going to matter given a cable internet connection. However, does > anyone have any thoughts about whether this new protocol is more stable and > robust than 802.11b? I've seen concerns raised about interoperability. My > suspicion is that for a public site, it's better to choose a common denominator > like 802.11b. > > I admit freely that I am not a techie ... just someone who is interested in > making wireless access available to myself and neighbors. > > Thanks ... Patrick Sheehy > _______________________________________________ > Twin Cities Wireless Users Group Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > http://www.tcwug.org > tcwug-list at tcwug.org > https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tcwug-list -- Chris Elmquist mailto:chrise at pobox.com http://www.pobox.com/~chrise