randy@oetl.UUCP (Randy O'Meara) (03/23/89)
I need information (manufacturers/distributors) on Infra-red
tranceivers. If I remember properly, there was some discussion
in this newsgroup recently about using this type of line-of-sight
setup for intra-bulding networking. Please email. Thanks.
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_______________________________________________________________
< Randy O'Meara -- LMSC -- SCF >
< {pyramid,leadsv}!oetl!randy PHONE: (408) 425-6249 >
<_______________________________________________________________>ron@ron.rutgers.edu (Ron Natalie) (03/23/89)
We've at long last, have been beta testing these laser (through the air) ethernet transcievers. With regard to setting them up and keeping them aligned with one another, they were much better than we expected. There turned out to be a firmware bug in them and they are busy fixing that, but we expect that it will probably work out. The things go for about $14,000 for the set. -Ron
grenley@sunkist.UUCP (George Grenley) (03/24/89)
In article <426@oetl1.oetl.UUCP> randy@oetl.UUCP (Randy O'Meara) writes: > I need information (manufacturers/distributors) on Infra-red > tranceivers. Try Codenoll Technology 1086 N Broadway Yonkers NY 10701 (914) 965-6300
scarter@caip.rutgers.edu (Stephen M. Carter) (03/24/89)
In article <Mar.23.10.09.15.1989.14834@ron.rutgers.edu> ron@ron.rutgers.edu (Ron Natalie) writes: >We've at long last, have been beta testing these laser (through the air) >ethernet transcievers. With regard to setting them up and keeping them >aligned with one another, they were much better than we expected. There >turned out to be a firmware bug in them and they are busy fixing that, >but we expect that it will probably work out. The things go for about >$14,000 for the set. To add some "light" to the above (sorry, I couldn't resist), the units are made by Lace Communications. (I am at home, so I don't want to try and guess on the address, or the actual specs, but I can post a later summary of the units if anyone is interested. The company has been around for a while doing RS232, RS422, T1, etc through these. The enet is new but uses the same basic guts. They were designed to be simple ethernet transceivers so the user can add the repeater/gateway/bridge of choice (I like this idea). We have the test config as follows: -----------------------------coax------------------------------- | | | | repeater sun servers | | Lace at Bldg A || || ;about 1500 feet Lace at Bldg B | --------- Fan-out | | diskless Suns They were installed by the vendor in about two hours (they say the user can install these, and watching, I would tend to agree). I *think* I remember the max distance to be a kilometer, and they are working on longer range versions. As Ron pointed out, we found them better than we expected. The trick is a very sturdy mount, and even with our temp mounts, they stayed pretty much on tract through the first thirty days of the test. The bug Ron mentioned showed up both at our site and the other beta site (NIH, I think) which was packet dropping on many long back-to-back packets (ie diskless Sun traffic). It was traced to one of the chips not being fast enough. We are waiting for our units to be returned from this fix. So, are many interested in the details? Stephen Carter Rutgers