The first time I encountered a wireless LAN was when one of my techs came running at me from off the floor. "I have this guy on the phone with a wireless hub," he said. "He is having connectivity problems." Unfortunately, since our lab did not contain any wireless LAN devices, it fell on me to tell a $200/month customer that since his wireless device was "non-standard" equipment, we would be unable to support him unless he fell back on his old CAT-5 connection.

I then spent the next few weeks arguing with my superiors that we NEEDED to get a wireless setup in our lab or on the floor. Rather than invest a few hundred in equipment (which shouldn't have been a problem for a company whose motto was "BURN VENTURE CAPITAL BURN!"), it was decided that we would never support customers implementing wireless devices. Needless to say, I developed a negative view of wireless networks, not because I didn't like the idea of them, but because my only experience with them was catching call escalations and was telling angry customers that we could not support them if they used wireless LANS. As a result, when it came to wireless, I voluntarily took a back seat on the Rands Express™. My bad.

Jump forward a couple of years. In January of this year I purchased an iMac (a tool which proudly sits with equal importance next to my PC), and it was then that my interest in wireless LANs re-emerged. After reading up on existing home/small-business wireless solutions, and discovering that Apple's Airport line was 802.11a compliant, I was sold on wireless. However, I resisted my "wireless fever" decided to hold off on any new purchases and wait for prices to drop. Sure enough, with the rolling out of "A" devices, the prices "B" devices began to drop. It was now time to strike! But I slammed on the breaks when I read the small print: "B" and "A" devices not compliant with one another. Damn. I was not about to invest in "B" equipment that might end up being incompatible with future wireless devices. So I have resumed a holding pattern. Back to my seat in the back of the Rands Express™. My bad.

Thank you Rands. This article is potentially great news for me. The idea of dual compliant equiptment is ver appealing. I can now make a smart choice and know I won't be selling off potentially hundreds of dollars of equipment in a year. At most I am looking at replacing a single WAP device, and moving my "B" cards to less essential systems while I install "G" cards on my workhorses.

HAGLULAGUHALGUHGALUA

ERRATA

Apple's current Airport line is "B" compliant, not "A".

I saw "What up, G" and stopped right there.

Bad, bad, bad.

So basically G+B and A dosen't work with shit. Great, what is it about America and having so many fucking wireless protocols?

This comment will be off topic but...

THANKS FOR THE DEUCE STRIPS I LOVE YOU ALL