On Jul 8, 21:11, Jules Richardson wrote: steel No, I don't think so :-) We had a guy from Intel here a few weeks ago, talking about Centrino technology, and wireless is a key part of that. He was someone senior from EMEA marketing but was well genned-up technically, and was quite open about some of the limitations nd what people had found in practice. here, Well, it depends what the job is, how many users there are simultaneously, and so on. If you're talking about a primary school where there's one incoming 512kbps broadband line, only a few computers, and they get moved about, it might make sense to put in minimal cabling to a couple of staff rooms, and use wireless for the rest. If you're talking about our offices and study bedrooms, where there will be lots of simultaneous users (and students generate an amazing amount of traffic), wiring is cheaper. We did the study. Twice. Don't forget you need an infrastructure to support the wireless APs. In fact, I came across a paper by one of the members of the 802.whatever committe which indicated that in many contexts, wireless mean more infrastructure, not less (because of the number of APs, power points or power-over-Ethernet, etc etc, and you still need the backbone and the fibre between buildings). Ethernet Depends on the facilities and bandwidth you need. We get a very good deal on certain types of switches, and cabling isn't very expensive per outlet if it's done in harmony with other works. On the other hand, to use wireless for the student network, we'd need an awful lot of APs, still need cable to get to them, fibre between the buildings, and although the switches would be fewer in number, we'd need a lot of PoE ports which cost money, and we'd be using Cisco Aironet 1200s or similar (I forget what the model number is for the 11a/b/g version), with full management facilites, VLAN support, panel antennae, etc. We get a really good price on those too, but they still cost several times as much as SOHO APs and either don't give a great bandwidth or don't cover a large number of users. Plus it takes just one oik with his own AP (which we ban, for reasons that have to do with experience :-)) to disrupt our nicely laid out coverage. This is getting a bit off-topic :-) Wireless may be classic, but I'm not sure wireless ethernet is ;-) -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York