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High Toll for Wireless Bridge: Page 3 of 4

The radio and software are engineered with draft support for the 802.11e wireless QoS (quality of service) standard. Packets can be queued and prioritized according to their Layer 2 or Layer 3 QoS tags, or via their virtual LAN ID. Cisco says the device can support up to 24 simultaneous VoIP (voice over IP) sessions with QoS.

Good
• Easy to configure and install
• Very fast throughput
• Very low latency
• 802.11e draft QoS support for delay and latency sensitive traffic
Bad

• Expensive: $10,000 for a pair of bridges
• Custom antennas must be installed professionally to meet FCC rules
• Long-distance links require climbing tall towers

Cisco Aironet 1400 Series Wireless Bridge, $4,999. Cisco Systems, (408) 526-4000, (800) 553-6387. www.cisco.com/go/aironet

More Resouces
See A refresher on 802.11a technology

The bridge radio supports a maximum of 24 dBm (250 mW) transmit power and its receive sensitivity is -68 dBm at 54 Mbps.

Cisco provides a wealth of security and authentication features with the included IOS software, including multilevel console user access control, RADIUS and TACACS+ authentication of users to the console, and the option to use RADIUS and 802.1X to authenticate remote bridges and provide advanced encryption and security from a central site.