Workgroup Products BayStack 600 Series Wireless LAN Products Overview Features and Benefits

The BayStack 600 Series Wireless LAN Products offer all the advantages of a wired LAN connection without the wire. Portable PC users can now easily tap into network resources such as e-mail, intranets, printers, and the Web. The BayStack 600 Series Wireless LAN Products also allow users to create a quick ad-hoc network between two or more PCs for file sharing, print sharing, chat capabilities and workgroup collaboration.

The BayStack 600 Series Wireless LAN Products use sophisticated spread spectrum radios to penetrate walls, doors, floors and other obstacles to create a seamless wireless network. Portable PCs equipped with BayStack 600 Series Wireless PC Cards can connect to the enterprise network from anywhere in the facility where wireless hubs have been installed.

The BayStack 650 products support high user density by allowing 10 or more overlapped Access Point cells. This scalability allows for a large amount of users in a relatively small area.

BayStack 660 Wireless LAN Products
The BayStack 660 Wireless Access Point works in conjunction with BayStack 660 Wireless PC Cards in portable computers to provide network access wirelessly. However, the BayStack 660 Wireless LAN Products use 2 Mbps Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS) radio technology to deliver the maximum point-to-point performance under the IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN standard. Each BayStack 660 Wireless Access Point supports 10 to 20 typical mobile users and provides a wireless coverage range of up to 300 feet in a standard office environment and up to 2,000 feet in an open environment.

Supports IEEE 802.11 WLAN Standard
The BayStack 600 Series Wireless LAN Products are IEEE standards-based products that provide full network functionality including multi-vendor roaming. They support either the FHSS or DSSS radio types allowed under the standard. The 802.11 standard provides complete 802.3 Ethernet transparency (see Figure 1).

Seamless Roaming
Extended wireless coverage for facilities and campuses is achieved by deploying multiple Access Points (see Figure 2). This allows users to move freely between coverage "cells" while maintaining their network connections.

Figure 2:           Contiguous placement of Access Points provides unlimited range.

Automatic Load Balancing
In heavy traffic or high user density areas, BayStack 600 Series Wireless LAN Products' automatic load balancing feature provides high-aggregate bandwidth when multiple BayStack Access Points are installed in highly overlapping cells. This increases system capacity and throughput (see Figure 3).

Peer-to-Peer (Ad Hoc) Networking
Multiple portable computers with the BayStack 600 Series Wireless PC Cards can communicate directly with each other without the use of an Access Point (see Figure 4). This allows for collaboration, printer and file sharing, or even online chat dialog.

Figure 4:          "Ad hoc" mode allows multiple PCs to communicate without an Access Point.

Advanced User and Management Utilities
The BayStack 600 Series Wireless LAN Products come with comprehensive installation and configuration software. Because of the BayStack 600 Series Wireless LAN Products' unique Windows-based utilities, users have convenient access to real-time information about their network connections, and administrators can conduct site surveys to optimize wireless coverage (see Figure 5).

The BayStack 660 Wireless Access Point also supports SNMP, and its Java-based management utility software makes wireless management tasks simple.

Figure 5: Site Survey Software shows connection quality, Access Point to which your PC is connected, domain number, and various other administrative network survey information.

Scalability
Each BayStack 600 Series Wireless Access Point creates an independent network segment. Multiple overlapped Access Points reduce contention and collisions between mobile units and increase system capacity. The BayStack wireless network can be designed to provide from 2 Mbps to 10 Mbps or more of aggregate bandwidth in a given coverage area.

Security
The BayStack 600 Series Wireless LAN Products offer multiple layers of security, including Access Point locking, user authentication, data scrambling, domain identification, and Frequency Hopping. Access Point locking prevents unauthorized users from configuring Access Points. With user authentication, each Access Point can contain a registry list of authorized BayStack 600 Series Wireless PC Card serial numbers. Data scrambling enables data to be encrypted. Many co-located logical networks can be operated independently in the same area by setting unique domain IDs, called "SSIDs." Spread spectrum radios provide a secure link between the PC Cards and the Access Points.

Field Upgradeable
The BayStack 600 Series Wireless LAN Products protect your investment through flash upgradeability, guaranteeing industry-wide interoperability.

Applications
As advances in portable computers make them essentially technically equal to desktop systems, up to a third of all PCs purchased by corporations are now laptops. This trend indicates that the increased productivity that mobility provides is extremely important to many corporations. In addition, the portability of PCs is dramatically increasing their use in education, healthcare facilities and many specialized areas like point-of-sale and purchase systems (see Table 1).

There is a growing need for mobile PCs running desktop and network applications to remain connected to network resources as users move about the workplace. The Internet, e-mail, data exchange, client-server applications, and corporate intranets put global resources at the fingertips of all PC users. Wireless networking offers a new dimension in productivity for PC users, enabling true portability through contiguous network access (see Figure 6). Contiguous connectivity makes for continuous productivity. The BayStack 600 Series Wireless LAN Products can revolutionize the way mobile users work today.

The finalization of the IEEE 802.11 worldwide standard for wireless LANs, and the resolution of technology issues relating to dynamic network addressing and security, have intersected to make wireless networking a real productivity tool for corporations. Now, employees sitting in a conference room or visiting a branch office can have high-speed instant access to all the network resources instead of being tethered with limiting wired LANs or slow, expensive dial-up connections.

Hospitals deploying new client server information systems can increase doctors' and nurses' productivity while at the same time raising the quality of care with