WirelessITDean

okay.... In the words of Samual L Jackson in Pulp Fiction... "then allow me to retort" 1. Q) Ok in this example I used .11b....throughput on the blanket is approx 5.5Mb. Share this blanlet across the entire school and we could have maybe hundreds of users fighting for that 5.5Mbs. Cell based I could opt for a .11a network, one AP in each classroom, no co channel interference and have much better thoughput than Extricom could offer? A) But remember within a 4 radio AP you have 4 separate networks everywhere and depending on the size and construction of the site you will get natural reuse just the same as traditional AP, also the main issue within the school environment is not normally bandwidth but with the problem of concurrent associations on a single AP this is because the traditional AP has to deal with all association and encryption tasks and causes dramatic performance issues when you get to 10 – 15 clients connected. With Extricom the association is with the Switch which can deal with 2007 concurrent associations and the encryption is also done in the switch in hardware not software. 2. Q) I hear that you have to have more AP's available to be "seen" by the client in order to get same band to function correctly....again this means youhave to have a denser deployment of AP's which costs more. A) In reality within the school environment Extricom usually uses less AP because the traditional way of getting around the association issue is to add more AP. 3. Q) Missing the point - if you share an "tweaked" antennae with a 2.4G and 5G radio the net effect is both radios will not have maximum tunned antennae for that radio....impact is that in a like for like test vs a traditional AP you will not get the distance. I guess you simply but more AP's in place....but again that means I need to purchase more AP's... A) I think you have misunderstood each radio within the AP has diverse Ae which is matched to both 2.4 and 5 Ghz but if that’s a problem you can always use the Ext Ae AP and put your own Ae matched to either 2.4 or 5 Ghz. 4. Q) You make it sound so simple, can you confirm then in a busy office I simply turn True Reuse on and it will triple/quadruple my bandwidth....what if there is no re-use available? A) No Truereuse is on a realtime basis and x3 is the theoretical max at the moment in the real world you will get between x1 and x3 but even if you only get x1.4 you have got 40% more for free. (they are working on x10 and also truereuse with 802.11n). 5. Q) ok so if I have VoIP on one blanket and seperate all my data onto the other blankets. How do I make sure, when my VoIP blanket is fully loaded, that I can guarantee other VoIP calls wont be dropped. QoS within the blanket is important...is CAC working yet? A) Current firmware supports WMM to give QoS within the blanket and CAC should be fully implemented within the next 2 month. 6. Q) LOL thanks Dean, it confirms point 11. If my Wireless controller fails, then yes I have a standby that, without haveing to un plug cables, will automatically adopt those AP's and recover in about 45 seconds. Extricom - as far as I know they can't offer this and in a mission critical environment will certainly cause issues. A) Ask your extricom rep for details on the matrix switch which will sit between the 2 switches (main/standby) and the AP for switchover within 30 sec. 7. Q) Sure understand the reason for fibre, but as I understand it the Extricom switches inly have copper interfaces.....doh! Media converters it is then...doh! A) The latest switch range has both fibre and copper Gbit links. 8. Q) I need t check this out. If this has changed then great. 9. Q) Zyxel and Belden OEM Extricom so yes you are buying Zyxel. Or if you are not you may as well be as it's much cheaper for the same box.......Doh! A) Both these are cutdown versions with a drastically cut down feature set. 10. Reply - LOL...I love the bit about mission critical being mostly readily tackled by Extricom. Without true redundancy that's not the case. A) See point 6 for the record, i like cool ade!! and am paid to constantly review other vendors. I am General Manager for WirelessIT and have enough time served in this industry, to know what other manufacturers did/do and will offer. I stand by my comments regarding the Extricom soluton. would you like me to continue:- okay...... Cisco = Cell Based, Flawed. lives on marketing and buying out other vendors then adding to range.. AIR. check out on google. Trapeze = Cell based, Flawed (bought out by Belden. see Q&A 9 above) Aruba = Cell based. Flawed. over priced. over complicated. over the top. too much overhead traffic and intelligence in APs therefore reducing throughput for clients. meru = cell based. flawed. Air Defense acquired by Motorola Bluesocket sold its IP Telephony business to Nortel HP Procurve has acquired Colubris and I like Colubris' external RF offering but Extricoms internal offering is still (sorry Brian if you ever get to read this) a far better solution. Gotta Sign off now unfortunately, i could do this all day (infact i am going to be, just not on here) but got work to do. Pleasure as always Keep Well Ya'll Kind regards Dean

Hi Simon (CPLTD) I really do appreciate having the opportunity to speak with your good self and clear everything up. I hope converse with you much more in the future. thanks again for the call. (and post) kind regards Dean

thanks GrumbleDook for the light hearted addition. hopefully we can get back to chatting and being helpful. however, how did you find the contention issue with the chesthair network ??? i have to admit that your solution would definately resolve the external link line of sight issues anyway that some wirleess technology suffers from . stay happy dean

CPLTD. please allow me to rest your mind at ease and stop this futile keyboard war. WirelessIt are an Extricom Distributor Cableserve (not associated) are a WirelessIT customer whom buy Extricom from WirelessIT. yes we are both located in cheshire, however we are not the same company at all. i must admint that i am dissapointed that you have shown malice towards my informative help (with no advertising or spam whatsoever) and for some reason would try to discredit me as a Distributo of Extricom. i dont understand your point. WirelessIt are not your competition, we supply companies like you.. you are a reseller and accredited partner for Extricom. we are a distributor which sells to accredited resellers. i hope that this will end your grievance, which i still fail to understand. your sincerely dean

Dear CPLTD as (if you had read my notices) you will be aware, i have been simply answering questions regarding the Extricom solution. i am sure that you are also aware of the chain involved in IT sales:- Vendor Distributor Reseller End User. reseller cant buy from Vendor and Distributor cant sell to end user. therefore i am not looking for free advertisement as quite honestly we dont need it. ! my posts have been to inform other Extricdom interested parties on the true capabilities of this vendors solution and i do this because i have a great understanding of the technology and have been working with Extricom for over 2 years. my details are online for anyone to pose questions to me and contact me for this purpose. however should i be asked to recommend a reseller for any educational establishment... i could with ease as i currently manage numerous installation accredited Extricom premier partners. now... to answer the user in the isle ... i understand your issues. kind regards dean

oh and PS, YES IT DOES HAVE QoS IEE 802.11e so you can have the best of both worlds kind regards Dean

Q5 Yes it has a better non program compicated version of QoS.. = A completely dedicated blanket (entire network.) what better version of QoS can you get ??? ps you can also VLAN the blanket should you wish. same as you would VLAN any other network. why would you want to divide an already strained wireless network to add QoS when you can simply seperate high packet (or real time) users to their own individual network (1 blanket QoS, 1 Blanket standard date, 2 blankets left for other purposes. etc etc) Q6 add a redundant switch! Also i suggest that you should choose a supplier that can offer contractual NBD like we (and most of our resellers) do. each manufacturer will have USP's. (uniique selling points) redundant back up is HP's etc, not a facility which Extricom currently provide. however if this is a hugely important issue, carry a spare switch. Q7. if you network is installed by a professional network service provider (such as ourselves via our resellers, or by certain resellers too) then this is not an issue. roof cavities, trunking, risers, daedo trunks, etc etc etc. i am presuming you already have a structured cable infrastructure ??? therfore this was installed at some point, and the Extricom WLAN would be the same... you would not even notice (aesthetically) that the solution had been installed when implemented by a quality installer. is there a particular reason why you feel adding more cable is an issue whilst being hidden, and also where are you in the UK that you cant receive NBD assistance tin this day and age. ??? kind regards Dean

Dear (Apparently) in the know. Please allow me to retort to your unsubstantiated reasons not to buy Extricom and thus put you in the know. under each of your reasons you will find an actual answer to your objections and therefore removing objectionality and implementing actual truth. 1. Each AP's acts as an antennae which gives great coverage area but adding AP's does not increase bandwidth! A 24 port switch with 24 AP's all on one "blanket" at .11b settings gives 11Mb of bandwidth...not good. Share that with 24 students in 24 classrooms then the potential available b/w is into the K/bs range...rubbish ANSWER:- 1.1 increase bandwidth with further AP's...Actually it does not increase B/W, IT INCREASES ACTUAL THROUGHPUT, by reducing contention and utilising uplink diversity (connecting to 3 AP's at all times rather than drowning one AP in a cell based solution such as Cisco, Trapeze, Aruba, Meru for example, and slowing down the network = less bandwidth for all users stuck on 1 AP with high contention instead of having a choice of 3 AP's... therefore less network traffic= higher throughput) also the extricom "blanket" removes edge users which is consistently found in cell based wireless. again Extricom providing greater bandwidth and throughput to each client rather than the closest to the cell based AP. 1.2 11b legacy clients... this is one of the main advantages in the Extricom solution. you can seperate legacy users onto another channel blanket as Extricom provides either X2 or X4 blankets from the same number of access points as a cell based solution.(cisco etc) therefore allowing 802.11g clients (and now N) to retain their 54Mbps status... ultimately you will know that 802.11b clients will haver this affect on every wireless network, but with Cisco, Trapeze, Meru, you cannot seperate them, therefore ending up with (as you say) "rubbish connectivity" we have had a test where 40 students all connnected with their personal laptop profiles (inc antivirus background programmes) in 3.5 minutes. try and achieve that with another wireless network...!!! 2. Dual radio AP's do not offer any antennae diversity ANSWER:- they dont need to because you utilise further APs as your diversity (actually increasing the effect by utilising X3 APs rather than X2 diversity antennas on X1 AP. (as you agree, the AP's in the Extricom solution act as antennas) 3. Dual or quad radio AP's have one antenna that "does all". The problem is that antennaes, to get max performance, requires different antennae's. Hence the one size fits all has an impact on distance...meaning more AP's to cover the same area which means more cost. ANSWER:- Any Access Point (internal with integrated antenna's) have a 2.2dBi antenna, same as Extricom. also please refer to answer2 to further substantiate antenna connectivity etc. 4. There True Reuse is a myth....ask them to show you this with several different types of laptops with different radio chipsets in. Make sure they are not all Atheros! ANSWER:- True re-use works. hoewever can only be utilised on X1 blanket so work out which 54mbps network "blanket" (from your choice of X4 = 216Mbps instead of 54Mbps) is going to be most utilised, then switch on true re-use and watch the actual throuput increase. NOT MYTH, FACT.. Although you do have to know how to configure correctly. Again different chipsets on any wireless network creates detriment, not just the Extricom soution, but again UPLINK DIVERSITY = faster log on times and better throughput. 5. Great VoIP demo yes...but they have no QoS on the box. They will say simply but different traffic types on different blankets but what about the same traffic types on the same blanket. ANSWER:- thats the point of seperate blankets, rather than proportion a part of your 54Mbps (standard network) bandwidth via VLAN, (IE 8Mbps VLAN VoIP, 46Mbps data) simply change blanket therefore not reducing connectivity for all other no QoS users, whilst still providing better QoS for the VoIP, Video clients. a much wiser and better suggestion than simply splitting what you have got. lkets face it, everyone on wireless wants more bandwidth, not less. 6. If an AP fails then it will auto re-route...yes but what happens when you have a switch fail! There is no redundancy and therefore this is not an enterprise class sytem. ANSWER:- Thats why you have "Value Added" companies such as ourselves. we provide Next Business Day (NBD) engineer on site with NBD switch swap maintenance inclusive. Can you tell me what happens when your Cisco WLAN controller fails ??? does this mean that Cisco cant provide an enterprise class system ??? 7. All cables have to re-route back to each switch...nothing can go over a layer two infrastructure. ANSWER:- this is no issue whatsoever. thats why fibre (industry standard) was invented. use to route multiple Extricom switches together. Also Extricom have provided a self powering inline Power over Ethernet repeater. thus increasing the standard PoE distance capabilities from 100metres to 200 metres. (Switch to AP) 8. Ask how many users can be assoicaied to any one switch. In order to make this system work the AP's are antennaes and the switchis the AP. Last I heard was that it could support 128 users in hardware then after that it ran like a dog in software. ANSWER:- 2007 possible associations can be held on the switch. in a much earlier firmware version, Extricom did separate clients via hardware, then with higher contention pass them off to software. this was solely for encryption and not in any way, sha[e or form related to contention/bandwidth resolves/problems. HOWEVER the firmware has changed greatly since then and this is no longer the case with Extricoms solution. 9. Cost - the solution is not cheap if you need several switches in several locations. ANSWER:- True, you get what you pay for. Remember your not buying 3com, NetGear, Zyxel etc. you dont get a Jaguar XF for CitroenC3 prices... Trapeze, Aruba, Cisco, Extricom = same price bracket. 10. Their channel is not well trained and leads to price differences between competing resellers. If you have an issue they call Extricom in directly and there are ony two engineers in the whole of the UK...STAY AWAY. ANSWER:- Completely incorrect. We have (WirelesIT) 11 trained Extricom engineers and we are a Disti. I have numerous reseller accounts whom also have large engineering resource (Extricom trained). we dont need to back everything off to the manufacturer as our (and our resellers) engineers answer the problems for you (again please refer to answer 6 above regarding maintenance contracts. Also i would like to point out that there is competition in any sales market. every product you buy (even between tomatoes and potatoes in Tesco or ASDA) is subject to price competition. this creates opportunities for businesses to succeed and also for well established companies to recieve the discount structure that they deserve. ultimately providing the end user (client spending their cash) with choice.!!! mission critical environments are the most readily tackled by Extricom over other manufacturers to to its malleability of spreading accross blankets with a possible 216Mbps (across 4 blankets 802.11a,b,g) rather than 54mbps. Extricom have now also released their N option. i suggest you check it out. you have mentioned to check out the other wireless LAN players and stick to well known names. Motorola - very good indoor and outdoor solution player, good price. MOTOROLA OWN 20% OF EXTRICOM. cisco - expensive but may fit with your current architecture CISCO IS OUTDATED AND SUFFERS FROM CELL BASED ISSUES, EDGE USERS, 802.11b BACKWARDS COMPATIBLE ISSUES WHICH CANNOT BE CLIENT SEPERATED LIKE EXTRICOM CAN ETC ETC ETC. Aruba - security play is good but you pay for it YEH, WILL COST YOU APPROX 4 TIMES MORE THAN EXTRICOM (TRUST ME THIS IS MY JOB) Belden/Zyxel - STAY AWAY some of it is Extricom but a different colour *************** I AGREE, BUT NOT BECAUSE THEY HAVE RE-BADGED EXTRICOMS TECHNOLOGY, JUST BECAUSE THEY ARE WHO THEY ARE. CHEAP AND ENTRY LEVEL TECHNOLOGY.. in the know... i really hope that this helps resolve your objections towards the Extricom proposition and that i have brought a little more understanding to your idea of how Extricom WLAN works and its benefits over EVERY OTHER MANUFACTURER on the market today. there is not one other manufacturer that can provide a true single channel blanket (with multiple blankets available) whilst removing the "cell based" architecture for a non disassociate-reassociate client experience. please feel free to contact me should i be able to help resolve any more objections, answer any questions or generally just be of wireless assistance. kindest regards Dean.

After reading your queries and reviews, I thought i would post this message for help purposes. If I can answer any of your quesitons regarding the Extricom WLAN proposal, please feel free to give me a call 01928 511793. This is by far the best internal Wireless LAN solution that i have ever come across in my working history of wireless technology, as i tackles the inherent problems that wirelessLAN as a whole use to (and still does bar Extricom) suffer from. I can honestly state that performance wise, there is no better (internal infrastructure) vendor. i lookk forward to hearing from anyone that needs answers regarding this technology. kind regards Dean