4. Yet More Wireless

With all the focus on MIMO and draft 802.11n, vendors of products that don't use these technologies have to really pump up the hyperbole to capture media attention. Thus EnGenius Technologies' claim that its PowerGear Indoor Bridge is so good that it "destroys" the wireless market for its competition.

The company, which is probably more known for its long-range cordless phone systems is launching what it says is the "world's longest range indoor client bridge"at Interop.

EnGenius ECB-3220

The ECB-3220 is a 802.11 b/g wireless client bridge and access point that has 400 mW of output power, which EnGenius claims is four times that of the typical AP. The bridge's features include Power over Ethernet support, WEP and WPA/WPA2 security, SNMP for monitoring management and an upgradeable antenna.

Big isn't the only way to get attention, however. Ortronics/Legrand is taking the opposite approach from EnGenius for its Wi-Jack Duo, which it claims is the "World's Smallest Dual Band/Dual Radio Wireless AP".

The patent-pending Duo is a complete dual-band AP that fits into a standard wall box. The product's faceplate is standard size and is raised only 12 mm from the wall surface. The secret of the Wi-Jack Duo's size, however, is that it's a "thin" AP that depends on a central wireless controller for most of its smarts.

Still, the product is pretty impressive for its size, containing internal tri-band omni-directional antennas mounted behind the faceplate and supporting simultaneous operation at 2.4 and 5 GHz at speeds up to 54 Mb/s. The Duo also supports simultaneous use as a dedicated air monitor and comes with or without an additional copper workstation port for wired connectivity. Pricing and availability wasn't provided in the announcement, but I'll run it down and post it later.

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