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The Wireless Network – with or without Hub

Although the entire lineup includes a Wireless Hub, you do not need this hub to build yourself a wireless network. With the use of only the adaptor cards you can build what SOHOware terms an “ad hoc” network. The Wireless Hub acts more like a bridge to an Ethernet network, and as signal extension for the wireless adaptors.

If you already have an existing Ethernet based network, especially if you have a DSL/cable router in your setup, you can use the Wireless hub to easily connect the wireless network to your existing network and to the internet. Using the Wireless hub we were literally transferring files from other computers on our Ethernet network, and surfing the web, within moments. If you don’t already have a network in place or a hardware DSL/cable router, you can try and forego the hub altogether and save yourself some money – you could easily share net access by having one of your computers act as the host. However, the Wireless Hub comes as a convenience for bridging easily with the rest of your existing network.

The range of the network, according to SOHOware, is from 150-500 feet indoors, and 1000-1600 feet outdoors. With a hub in place, you can place your adaptors around the hub so that this range becomes a radius (and thus offers a wider range of coverage), rather then a straight line range. In our real world tests however, the range was not quite as impressive as the specs.

Real World Performance

We tested our wireless network in both residential and office settings and found some interesting differences in connection quality. Remember that the 150-500 foot range listed by SOHOware most likely represents the absolute limits of acceptable connection quality. The 802.11b protocol calls for the hardware to continuously monitor the signal quality and change the connection speed in a stepwise fashion to accommodate network conditions. While the maximum throughput is 11Mbps, the connection drops down to 5.5,2, and 1Mbps as the situation warrants. You can be sure that at the limits of the maximum range, you are really connected at 1Mbps.

Signal quality depends on many factors. Aside from distance, you have objects and walls which interfere with the transmission of wireless signals. Which is why a residential area or any area with many walls will likely hinder your network.

When we set up the NetBlaster II in our residential environment, we found that the absolute limit of the PCMCIA range was no more than 30-40 feet in either direction. By that point we were already asking the network to work through 3-5 walls, but we were nonetheless disappointed by the limited range of our network. When corresponding with SOHOware’s product manager, I was assured that he uses the NetBlaster in his own home, where his range is as good as 125 feet, through 2 walls.

In our office setting, the range was a lot more forgiving. We set up a network with a radius of 50+ feet and encountered no problems at all. At one point, we had a laptop at the furthest extremities of the office, where it was transmitting 60 or so feet, through 3 walls – signal quality was rock solid.

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