2002 - cesnet

Manufacturerwww.accton.comwww.actiontec.comwww.dlink.comwww.netgear.comwww.intel.comwww.proxim.comLocation802.11a only for US, Canada and Japan802.11a only for US, Canada and Japan802.11a only for US802.11a only for US, Canada and Japan802.11a only for US, Canada and Japan802.11a only for US, Canada and JapanTable 4.7: Products of IEEE 802.11a for 5.3 GHz banddevices offer products using the 5.8 GHz frequency band, assigned for Europeancountries. Manufacturers offer only products designed for the US market,running in the 5.3 GHz band.We inquired among Czech distributors representing the manufacturers mentionedabove who all claimed that no production of devices for the Europeanband of 5.8 GHz has so far been planned. Most of them do not offer even the“US” versions. The only exception is Barco s. r. o. – an official distributor ofProxim devices, which offered the “US” devices for the following prices:• Harmony Access Point 802.11a, EUR 1,000• Harmony CardBus PCMCIA Card 802.11a, EUR 350For the purpose of comparison, the prices for similar devices offered by Intel onthe US market are as follows:• Intel PRO/Wireless 5000 LAN Access Point, USD 450• Intel 802.11a PCMCIA card, USD 180Unlike in common 802.11b cards (e.g., Orinoco), it is impossible to connect theavailable 802.11a PCMCIA cards to an external antenna, necessary for long-distancewireless connection. An external antenna can be connected to accesspoints. For the 5 GHz band, there are antennas available with a gain of 5, 7 and12 dB. It is less than for the 2.4 GHz band, for which antennas of 17, 21 and 24 dBare available.Barco also offers special devices by Proxim – Tsunami ( ) Wireless EthernetBridges, the only device working in the approved 5.8 GHz band. It reaches thespeed of 45 Mbps (full duplex). This device also includes an internal antenna,an external antenna may be connected as well. Using the internal antenna, thereach is 2–8 km; using the external antenna the reach exceeds 10 km (eventhough the output power exceeds the limits approved by the Czech TelecommunicationsOffice). The level of the output power is software controlled. Theprice for this device for a single point is quite high – approx. EUR 12,500 for Tsunamiand EUR 800 for the external antenna.During the second half of the year, we maintained contacts with Czech distributorsof the world’s leading manufacturers of wireless technologies, looking for adevice communicating within the European band. The situation improved to aHigh-speed National Research Network and its New Applications 200255