Is Cisco 350 AP Intentionally Crippled to Prevent Long Distance?

Question

Will a Cisco 350 AP (AIR-AP352E2R-A-K9) and 350 Workgroup Bridge (AIR-WGB352R) combination work at long distances (5-10+ miles), given sufficient antenna gain and good LOS/Fresnel conditions ... just as well and reliably as less costly consumer-grade equipment?

Or did Cisco intentionally cripple the 350 AP, as some old posts seem to suggest, to limit the AP-WGB combination to 1-2 miles, even with external antennas ... to force you to have to buy a pair of their

350 Wireless Bridges (BR350-A-K9) to do long distance?

The 350 AP and WGB can be had for reasonable prices nowadays on eBay, but the BR is still at stratospheric prices even on eBay. I am wondering if it is possible to do long distance using just the AP-WGB combination, instead of BR-BR.

Jeff Liebermann · Accepted Answer

No, the wall is at about 10-13 miles. This may help with the numbers:

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experience with using Cisco 350 AP's for long range. All mine are indoors. I do have an AIR-BR342 bridge running at 5 miles, but that doesn't count.

I dunno about the access point, but the client radios will do over 2 miles. See:

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the section "Amateurs complete 82-mile two-way DSSS link on 2.4 GHz" using Cisco 350 cards without amps. No clue if they tweaked the timing.

Any references to claims of "intentional" crippling? I wanna see if they make sense.

It's not just the timing. The wireless transparent bridges have an additional protocol that lets it distribute the MAC address to port number bridging table between the two ends of the bridge.

Marcin Lukasik · Answer

: Or did Cisco intentionally cripple the 350 AP, as some old posts : seem to suggest, to limit the AP-WGB combination to 1-2 miles, even : with external antennas ... [..]

Tell me: HOW? If power is the same, even pcmcias inside are exactly the same. It will work both on AP and bridge. But when connecting two bridges you're getting some extra kbytes/s.

Martin

Is Cisco 350 AP Intentionally Crippled to Prevent Long Distance?

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