basic AP question

[callikill]

OK I have a silly question that has probably been asked a million times. We are setting up a wireless extension to our network. We have close to 200 users on the lan\wan but only 10-5 are going to use the wireless capability with handhelds and a couple laptops. We want to do something very typical: set up wireles in a conference room so people can just bring there laptops in a work during meetings or presentations. We played with a little linksys wap11 and it seems to be a piece of garbage. now we want to set this up right. If you were in our situation and money was not a huge issue, what AP would you look at? I am new to the WI-FI world and need a starting point of what is a good enterprise security rich AP(in the real world).

any info would be great! Cheers!

[Aiakos]

WAP11 is actually a pretty good ap. What problems were you having with it?

As far as other aps, are you going to need NAT or do you have a DHCP server on the LAN you can use?

[Uncle Ken]

Cisco and Proxim would be my first two choices.

[dot11mike]

I would skip the whole Cisco/Proxim/fat AP model and go right to the "enterprise level" switch players...

Aruba
Airespace
Trapeze

With the Aruba, you can probably get by with buying their 800 switch/appliance and some AP's....

[Uncle Ken]

Mike, I think this application is a little small for thin APs, which aren't really cost-effective in small quantities. Also, none of the companies you mention are more than startups and, while their prospects may seem bright at the moment, most of their experiences are still ahead of them, and therefore unknown. Proxim and Cisco have enterprise class products with successful histories and excellent support. I would favor Cisco these days, given recent problems with Proxim.

At least we all agree that Linksys is NOT the way to go!

[Jdwoods]

I like Proxim a lot for now... didn't Cisco buy Linksys .... I think Linksys has a bright future in SOHO with Cisco as the CEO...

[dot11mike]

Ken...

Yeah.. after re-reading the original post.. I missed the 10-5 wording about WIFI users and only saw the 200.... Ooops.. 5 or 10 isnt enough for the Wifi Switch players....
I would go with the Proxim AP-600's in this case.....
If the need grew, they can then go for the Wavelink management software or always add a Bluesocket device....

Mike

[callikill]

Thanks for the good feedback. Both me and my boss are leaning towards Cisco. There are only a couple people going to use it at first but if history proves true, many people will want it. And it will probably grow out of control.

[callikill]

Here is a little update. I took some advice on this board and got a proxim 600. Thanks for the recomendation! It is super cheap and made my boss much happier than the goofy linksys.

Thanks again!