Dell Truemobile - how useful??

[Jim Carter]

On 8 May 2002, Aristotle wrote:
> So how can one get their Dell laptop to link up with community wireless
> LAN's?
>
> On Sat, 2002-05-04 at 15:58, Manuel M. T. Chakravarty wrote:
-- jimc paraphrase: I can barely cover my back yard, if that. --

Using my Dell TrueMobile 1150 (mini-PCI, Lucent-Agere firmware), I get
varying range depending on the transmitter.  At work, outdoors, with
Cisco-Aironet access points (don't know the model), I get at least 100
meter range if the line-of-sight to the AP is not blocked.  And a lot less
if there's a building in the way.  Indoors (and with competing access
points indoors), 30 meters down a hallway is typical, but through walls
made of plaster over metal mesh, it only works near doors.

At home (see tale of woe about interoperability in Ad-Hoc (IBSS) mode with
a Linksys partner with Intersil firmware), the partner's antenna is in the
worst possible location, backed up to an exterior wall of stucco over
chicken wire (metal mesh with 2cm openings) and with a metal filing cabinet
nearby. I too cannot cover my back yard from that location.

I don't know anything about residential construction in Australia, but here
in Los Angeles where my kind of construction is common, Australian style
community LANs might be difficult. An idea is to put your gateway computer
in the attic, perhaps with a directional antenna pointing at the remote AP,
and bridge/route to a local AP which covers your house wirelessly. Beware
of rain, hot sun, and termite extermination. I'm sure some of the $1000
Orinoco AP's can be convinced to do this (wireless handoff and rebroadcast)
but I don't know for sure, and the price is ridiculous.

I've ordered an Agere Orinoco AP-200 for US$ 150, and I'm going to put it
on a high bookshelf.  I'll let you know how it works out.  Cross fingers --
I seem to be a jinx for technological solutions :-)

James F. Carter          Voice 310 825 2897    FAX 310 206 6673
UCLA-Mathnet;  6115 MSA; 405 Hilgard Ave.; Los Angeles, CA, USA  90095-1555
Email: jimc at math.ucla.edu    http://www.math.ucla.edu/~jimc (q.v. for PGP key)