About Our Unlocked Phones
Since we entered the cell phone market in May, we have received a number of inquiries about the "unlocked" cell phones we have for sale. I would like to take a moment to better explain what an "unlocked" phone is and why it is a nice thing to have.
When a phone manufacturer makes a phone model, cellular providers buy them and brand them with their company names. Almost always they will also enter a code into the phone to "lock" it to their service. This means that a phone you buy in a Cingular store is locked to only work with Cingular service. If you put a T-Mobile SIM card in the phone, it will say "invalid SIM" or something similar. If you buy the exact same model phone in a T-Mobile store, it will be locked for T-Mobile and will display an "invalid SIM" message if you put a Cingular SIM card in it. The hardware (the phone itself) is not different. For example, take the V180 cell phone from Motorola. You can buy this phone at a Cingular store or at a T-Mobile store. The phones are identical in all aspects except that each one has had a lock code entered into it by the respective provider.
Cell phone companies do not have to lock their phones, but they choose to do so for business purposes. A phone that is locked cannot be used with a competitor's service (unless it is unlocked). It also decreases the resale value of the phone should you decide to sell it because the market size shopping for that specific carrier is going to be smaller than the market size shopping for all carriers- it's simple mathematics. It is not a legal issue, just a business decision that cell phone companies make.
For consumers, unlocking a cell phone is a pefectly okay thing to do. It is not like hacking a software program to use it without paying for it. Consumers are allowed to unlock their phones, though doing so often voids any phone warranty offered by the provider. If you unlock a phone, this means that you take away the lock code and then the phone will work with any GSM provider, including Cingular, T-Mobile, and AT&T wireless (note: this article is about GSM providers and does not apply to CDMA or TDMA providers like Sprint or Verizon). If you buy a phone from a Cingular store and unlock it, you will no longer get an "invalid SIM" message if you put a T-Mobile SIM card in it. You can use the same phone with multiple providers, which is nice if you ever decide to change providers.
But unlocking a phone is not easy. Most phones cannot be unlocked directly by the end consumer. There are three ways to get an unlocked phone. The first of course is to buy one that is already unlocked, like those that we sell. The second way is to buy a phone that is locked and then pay a company to unlock it for you. A Google search for "unlock GSM" returns all sorts of companies that offer this service. Some of the offerings are straightforward- you pay and then the company sends you a special cable and/or code that you can use to unlock the phone. Some of the offerings are more risky and require that you mail your phone away to be unlocked and then wait to receive it back. While some good things have been said about this type of service, it is important to understand that if you do choose to mail your phone away, you have little recourse if the phone is never returned. So caveat emptor on that one. The third way is to search the Internet to see if there are any codes available for free that you can try yourself. There are some free code generators available for download that sometimes work and sometimes don't. With most GSM phones if you try to enter an unlock code manually, you have five tries and if you fail on all five, no codes can be entered any more, kind of like with an ATM card at a bank machine.
So the easiest and cheapest way to get an unlocked phone might be to just buy one that is already unlocked. This is an especially great option for customers of AT&T Wireless. If you are an AT&T Wireless customer, you may already know that since the merger with Cingular, the only way you can get a new phone through Cingular for your service is if you agree to change your existing plan to a new Cingular plan, extend your contract, and pay for the new phone. If you buy an unlocked phone, all you have to do is put your AT&T Wireless SIM card into the phone and you are all sent to make and receive calls. You keep your same plan, and the same contract. This only applies to AT&T GSM customers of course (if your phone has a SIM card you are an AT&T GSM customer. If it does not, you are a CDMA or TDMA customer in which case none of this applies).
To see our phone offerings, click here. Note that not all phones we sell are unlocked, so be sure to check the individual description to see if we say that the phone is unlocked.
posted at: 12:48 | path: | permanent link to this entry
Here's to a Better Online Shopping Experience!
We do a lot of chatting about different products and services here on rokblog, but the one thing we do not do enough of is thank our great customers. And I am not talking about the "thanks for your business" formality that is printed on every cash register receipt or shopping bag you get in a store. We really do appreciate our customers, not just because they keep us in business (which is an obvious one) but because they help make being in this industry a fun experience for us. We are not call center reps that respond to customer inquiries with preexisting text, we are folks that enjoy technology and enjoy applying it in our lives, both at work and at home. We have discussions with our customers about their issues and questions. I know that I enjoy talking with a customer on the phone about a new technology or product and the neat things it can do. I equally enjoy going over the shortcomings of some products and finding ways to help customers overcome them. The best part of the job is when we are educated by a customer who might know more about a particular product or technology than we do. Then we can pass that information along to others. So again, thanks to all of you for your continued business and thanks for sharing your experiences with us.
At Rokland even though we get great feedback from our customers, we are always asking ourselves how we can make the customer experience better. We do our best to get shipments out as timely as possible and to minimize problems that could result in order delays. There are also some things that you can do when shopping online, be it here at Rokland or elsewhere, to make sure your order goes as smoothly as possible. One thing to remember is to always include valid contact information. I know, I know, no one wants to receive unwanted junkmail or telephone calls, so sometimes it is tempting to put in an outdated email address and/or telephone number when placing an order that way you don't risk getting junk in your inbox or risk having those pesky telemarketers call. At Rokland we do not give your contact information out to anyone, but it is important that we have your valid contact information to notify you if any issues arise on your order. Say for example you order six units of an item but we only have five in stock. It may be that you are okay with having the order downgraded to five units and want the five we have shipped out right away, or it may be that you must have six and do not want any units from us if you can't get the six you need. In the event of an inventory discrepancy like this, it is important that we can reach you to alert you of the situation and find out how you want to proceed. If we can't reach you, the order may be delayed until we hear from you, or it may be cancelled if we cannot get your confirmation of the order quantity change.
It is also important to remember to include your full address information when placing an order. This includes apartment or suite numbers and should also include the full street address. It is a force of habit to take shortcuts and write an address like this:
Joe Moe
123 Ridgemore
SLC, UT 01234
when your full address is actually:
Joe Moe
123 Ridgemore Lane
Apartment 17
Salt Lake City, UT 01234
While the postal carrier may know who you are and is able to deliver your mail even when addressed to the first example, couriers such as UPS may not be able to. If you leave off the apartment number, often times they send you a post card and wait for you to call with the apartment number so they can attempt redelivery, thus causing a delay of a few days. Sometimes if they cannot reach you, they will return the package back to us. Also, the UPS distribution center may not know where to deliver the package if it is only addressed to 123 Ridgemore. If there is both a Ridgemore Lane and a Ridgemore Street in your town, they may again have to delay delivery until they can find out the correct location for delivery.
Obviously when going through a checkout process on a web site, one wants to complete the process as quickly as possible, so shortcuts taken like those in example one are common. But sometimes they can lead to delays or undeliverable packages altogether, so remember to include your full address information when placing an order. One other thing that you may not know is that couriers bill us, the shipper, a small fee for any address correction that has to be done on a package. So if you forget your apartment number, we have to pay an address correction fee. We of course would never bill this charge to the customer, but the reason we note this is because we do have to factor in this type of fee as a cost of doing business, and when costs get too high on our end, that is when we unfortunately have to make increases in prices or shipping charges. So by providing correct address information, you can indirectly help us keep our prices and shipping charges as low as possible!
One final thing you can do is to always remember to make sure your credit card billing address is the same as your shipping address. This requirement is in place because it helps protect you- if someone steals your credit card and tries to place an order with it on our web site, we are able to prevent the fraud by not charging the card because we will see that their shipping address does not match your billing address. We know that sometimes there are legitimate cases where you will need an item sent to an address that is not a billing address. In such cases, we can make exceptions to this policy, but ask that you please call us first to okay the situation, thus avoiding a possible delay or cancellation of the order once it is placed.
Again, we thank all of our great customers for their continued business and wish you safe and happy online shopping.
posted at: 01:56 | path: | permanent link to this entry
A Review of Google Desktop Search
At Rokland, we sell a lot of wireless Internet products, and we like to talk about those products here on rokblog, but we also like to talk about other things as well, such as what to do once you are on the Internet. The Internet is a great source of entertainment, it contains a wealth of news and information, and you can also find some great software programs out there. Of course anyone who hasn't been living in the dark ages already knows this, even if they don't have Internet access themselves. But if you haven't had time to check out anything new on the Internet for a while, we suggest you take a look at the new the Google Desktop Search program which is available for download at the Google.com web site.
Have you ever tried searching for a document or an email on your computer with a loose set of keywords you remember from a letter or conversation? Perhaps you wrote a note somewhere on your PC, maybe even in an instant message program, about going window shopping with a friend next Monday, but you can't remember her phone number, although you know it is documented somewhere on your PC. So you try using the built-in Windows search tool with the keywords "Windows" and "Monday." Forty-five minutes later, you are greeted with a list of files that have names you don't even recognize, like rbnttp.dll. I always found this strange because you can locate almost anything on the Internet, which is much much larger than your hard drive, in mere seconds. The folks at Google must have found that strange too, because they released their Google Desktop search tool which basically treats your hard drive like the Internet, and allows you to search through documents, emails, and even instant messages almost instantaneously. It also gives you the option of narrowing your search down to just emails, just web files, or just documents. If you use a mail program like MS Outlook, you can search through emails instantly as well. The MS Outlook program by itself can literally take a half hour to find keywords when searching folders with thousands of messages. The Google Desktop search treats your emails just like Internet web pages and returns results in seconds.
The first time you use the program you will have to wait quite a while because it needs to crawl your entire hard drive in order to be able to return results (when I say "you will have to wait" I don't mean your PC will be unusable in the meantime, I just mean you won't be able to search with the tool until the crawling process completes). But once that is done, it constantly crawls new files and emails in the background, so that search results are at the tip of your finger. And you can access the desktop search page right from Google's web site.
So do we give this program a big thumbs up? Well, not quite. It is great, no doubt, but the drawback is that, just like with Google's Gmail service, results are scanned by a bot and relevant advertisements are displayed on your search results pages. It's not the same as having a human browse through all of your sensitive files, but it does create a privacy trade-off. By using the service you are allowing an outside bot to have access to every name, number, and word that is on your hard drive. While the folks at Google could probably care less about what is on your PCs, what if an outside party were to ever somehow gain control of that bot and control it remotely? Not a likelihood, but certainly not an impossibility.
All things considered, I really don't know how I lived without the Google Desktop search program before. But while I use it on my home PC, I don't think I would suggest deploying the program in an enterprise environment. Though I should note if you do need a search solution for desktop PCs in a corporate environment, Google does offer some pay-for-play solutions, so all hope is not lost.
posted at: 01:10 | path: | permanent link to this entry
802.11b or Not 802.11b? That is the Question...
If you are not familiar with wireless standards, there are three main ones. 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g (also know as A, B, and G networks). The first one is rarely deployed except in some corporate areas. It is fast at 54 megabits per second (54 mbps), but it runs on the 5 GHz frequency and the range is not as good. 802.11b and 802.11g both run on the 2.4 GHz frequency, and offer better range, although the range does vary widely based on the brand of equipment you buy and other external factors as well. The main difference between B and G is speed- B offers transfer speeds up to 11 mbps, while G can reach speeds of 54 mbps. Because they run on the same frequency, just about all B and G items are dually compatible with each other (meaning B cards can connect to G routers at 11 mbps and G cards can also connect to B routers at 11 mbps). So in theory, it sounds like G would be your best bet since it is faster. Many retailers are only offering G equipment and are urging their customers to buy upgrades to the new G standard right away. So the question is, has 802.11b become obsolete, and should you chuck your B equipment and upgrade to G?
No, you should not. In fact, as cheap as B equipment has become these days, I would recommend buying B if you plan on building your own wireless network. But G is almost five times faster right? Yes, techincally it is. But if you want a wireless setup in order to share your cable or DSL broadband connection, you will not notice a speed difference. This is because the fastest broadband connections generally top out at 3 megabits per second. So whether you connect with a B or a G network, your fastest browsing and downloading speed will only be 3 megabits per second, not 11 or 54. It's like deciding to buy a car- does it matter to you if car A can only reach top speeds of 180 mph and car B can reach 225 mph? Most likely no, since you will never be taking the car above 80-90 mph on the interstate. Even for you daredevils, you probably won't ever hit the top speed, so it doesn't really matter. The same holds true when discussing B and G. Now this is not absolute. Some businesses may have multiple high speed T1 lines and they might be able to take advantage of the faster G speeds. Also, networks that are being built primarily for file sharing and not so much for Internet sharing can benefit from the faster speeds of G. But if you are like most, and you only want wireless equipment so you can share your broadband connection, B will be more than enough.
It is true, that some day down the road broadband connections may eventually exceed 11 mbps. But wireless speeds are years and years ahead of broadband speeds, and by the time they do without a doubt there will be at least one, if not more, wireless standards for home use that will far exceed the speeds of B or G.
So if you already own B equipment, don't rush out to buy G unless you have a specific need that requires it. And if you haven't bought any wireless equipment yet, when shopping around, it may be wise to consider buying B since you can find most B equipment at lower prices than G.
posted at: 22:30 | path: | permanent link to this entry
Wireless Troubleshooting
In recent weeks, as we continue to add to our wireless product line, we have been getting more questions in regards to common wireless issues. I thought I would take a moment to address some of them here.
The most common of them has been something along the lines of the following:
"The card I bought from you doesn't work in laptop A which has Windows XP, but my other brand cards that I own all do. But I know your card is not a defect because it works fine over on laptop B which also has XP. What do you think is wrong?"
This is becoming a more common question as XP is gradually becoming the most common operating system among PC users (replacing Windows 98). There are two ways that most wireless cards will be able to connect to a wireless signal. The first is through the default software that comes with the wireless card, generally called a "wireless utility". The wireless utility will supposedly identify available networks and connect your wireless card to one, or allow you to choose which wireless network to connect to if there is more than one signal available. The second way is through the Windows XP software, which can autodetect the presence of a wireless network and autoconnect you, and it also gives you the option of choosing which one to connect to if there is more than one network available.
Which way is the best? There are people who argue both sides, but if you are looking for ease of use, we recommend using the XP utility, especially if you use more than one wireless card on your PC and are commonly switching out cards. Different configuration utilities can conflict with each other, and can also conflict with the Windows XP software. If you are being told by Windows that your wireless card cannot obtain an IP address from your wireless access point, and you know the card is within range, right click on the wireless network icon on your taskbar and click "View Available Wireless Networks". On the window that pops up, click "Changed Advanced Settings" over on the left side. Then click the Wireless Networks tab on the new window that opens and check the box next to "Use Windows to Configure my Wireless Network Settings." This will cause Windows XP to override any third party wireless utility and will generally resolve any connection issues you might be having with your card. Be careful because many third party wireless utilities will load themselves at startup and if you tkae the above steps, they will report that your card is not configured properly to be used with their software and will tell you to click OK to fix this. This will cause that app to become the default utility again instead of Windows XP, and you will need to redo the steps above again to fix it. In some cases where the third party wireless utility is autoloaded at startup, you will have to repeat the above steps each time you reboot so it may be best in that case to just uninstall the third party utility.
Another common question is this:
"I am not getting the range with this wireless card that I thought I would. Could the card be a defect?"
The short answer is that it is not likely a defective card. If the antenna is picking up a signal, no matter how weak, is is most likely that the antenna is working but some other factor is affecting the signal strength. A defective antenna or card will usually not work at all. There are many factors that can impact a wireless signal, a number that are unseen to the naked eye. The most common is interference from other 2.4 GHz appliances, including 2.4 GHz cordless phones and microwaves. If you have a 2.4 GHz cordless phone somewhere between your wireless card and access point, try moving it to the other side of the room. If you are in an office location where there are many phones, you may want to try upgrading your phones to 5.8 GHz ones, or even downgrading to 900Mhz if you can. FCC regulations require 2.4 GHz devices to accept interference from other devices on the same frequency, so don't wait for "interference free" wireless devices to ever hit the market since they never will.
If you are trying to use your wireless card a long way away from your access point, the problem may be that your card or access point does not have a strong enough antenna. Remember, not all wireless cards were created equal. A generic 802.11b wireless card on eBay for $9.99 will not give you the same performance as an enterprise class 802.11b card like Orinoco or Senao, no matter what the seller tells you. Generic cards are cheap because they use low range antenna and are low power cards. Low range antenna are fine if you will be using the PC in the same room (or possibly even the next room) as the access point or router. But if you are trying to use the PC further away, such as down a long hall or upstairs, the antenna likely will not be strong enough. When you are shopping for a wireless card, be sure to determine ahead of time if you need a low range, a mid range, or a long range (enterprise class) card. Obviously the better the range the higher the price, so don't spend a bundle if you will only be using your PC a few feet from the access point.
If you buy a card like this Orinoco card, or this Senao card, both which have external antenna jacks, you can always buy an external antenna to increase the range even more if the built-in antennae are not strong enough for your range requirements. In fact, there is a whole group of hobbyists who partake in the activity of acquiring high quality cards and antennae to detect wireless signals from afar, or from remote locations. This activity, sometimes dubbed "wardriving" is growing especially among folks who travel a lot and want to get a wireless signal wherever they are- whether a fancy hotel in midtown Manhattan or a Ramada special in Laramie, Wyoming. So if you must have good range, there is a plethora of options available to you- don't just settle for the one or two wireless products that are on the shelf at your local Best Buy or Circuit City.
posted at: 11:25 | path: | permanent link to this entry
Opening Up the Hood
Sometimes poking around can boost your wireless coverage area immensely.
As a seller of various wireless networking equipment, we are infatuated with trying to find new ways for our customers (and ourselves) to get better and stronger wireless coverage. If you have hundreds of dollars to spend, it is not hard to do- just by the top of line equipment. But if you don't have that much money, or don't want to spend that much, it is still possible to build a quality wireless network on a tight budget. In fact you may be able to build an enterprise class network using the low or midrange equipment you already have with just a single addon.
That's what I found out when I was faced with a wireless coverage issue here at Rokland this week. We test out all of our used wireless cards here at the office to make sure they work properly before we ship them to customers. We used to have the testing laptop right next to our Proxim access point. It did the job, but then we decided to move the access point further away so that we could also test the range on some of these cards and include this information in our item descriptions. That also worked well. But because the access point is now on the far side of the office, some of our desktop PCs on the other side of the building that have low range PCI cards in them could no longer connect to the access point. The simple solution was to buy a new access point for the weak coverage areas.
But before spending the money on that, I decided to poke inside our Proxim access point just to see how it worked. Inside was a Proxim PCMCIA card attached to the main board of the access point. The PCMCIA card is not a standard one that Proxim manufactures for use in laptops, it was a special one that had no attached antenna, but instead had two connectors in which the access point antenna was connected. They looked like MMCX connectors. I removed the OEM antenna (which is low gain) and sure enough, I had two MMCX connectors. So I then connected a 5 dBi gain magnetic mount antenna (as seen here) to the PCMCIA card and put the casing back on the access point. The antenna cable neatly comes out of the hole where the OEM Proxim antenna used to come out. I powered up the access point and now get brilliant coverage (the same as I would with an enterprise class access point with a similar gain antenna). All those PCs with low range PCI cards at the far end of the office that could not get a signal before now all get "excellent" signals ("excellent" is not an adjective I am applying, that is the quality of the signal as described by the Windows XP wireless utility). So instead of buying a new access point or buying high gain RP-SMA antennae for all of the PCs on the far side of the office, I was able to accomplish my needs with the addition of just one magnetic mount antenna to our wireless network.
For all I know, many access points may not have an internal interface like our Proxim one and therefore the antenna may not be upgradeable. But it never hurts to poke around (well, almost never, but don't blame me if you do and you break something) you might just be able to save yourself some money.
posted at: 12:29 | path: | permanent link to this entry
What's Next For Wireless?
In case you've never heard of Moore's law, it is a simple assertion (that has proven true so far) that computer chip speeds will double every 18 months. That's the law that basically makes your new computer obsolete by the time you get it home from the store- a newer and faster chip is already on the way.
But what about wireless networking? Speeds really haven't improved all that much over the last few years, so is wireless technology at a stand-still? Not quite. In fact, wireless devices are still waiting for broadband speeds to catch up. The average cable or DSL speed in most homes is either 1.5 megabits per second (mbps) or 3.0 mbps, while 802.11b wireless devices have speeds of 11 mbps and 802.11g devices can now reach 108 mbps data transfer speeds. Since the most common activity of wireless networking is Internet connection sharing, at this point in time it doesn't matter how much faster wireless speeds get since your Internet browsing speed will not improve.
There are still many exciting areas for wireless networking to expand though, and now is a better time than ever for consumers and businesses to get into the wireless game. Rokblog has heard through the grapevine that some broadband providers are considering rolling out WiFi access point service in urban areas, which would have speeds equivalent to cable or DSL, but would not require any type of modem. If you are in a coverage area for such a service, all you would need is a wireless card and an account from the provider.
If you are not in an urban area, there are still some new and fun options open to you. If you go to your basic computer retailer and buy their top-of-the-line wireless card, you will probably end up with a SOHO (small office/home office) card from a manufacturer like Netgear or D-Link. While these cards are of good quality, you probably won't be able to pick up any wireless signals outside of the signal in your own home being broadcast from your wireless router. The alternative to this is what is known as wardriving, or network sniffing. This is considered a sport to some people, and consists of buying a special wireless card with an connector jack for an external antenna, and then buying a very strong antenna to connect to it. This allows you to pick up wireless signals much further away then you could with your basic store-bought card. Depending on what kind of antenna you get, you can pickup signals from miles away instead of just feet.
At Rokland we have gotten into the game already, primarily because our owners already do this type of stuff in their spare time. One guy even has an outdoor antenna which he shares with others as his own wireless hotspot (don't tell the broadband companies!).
We have some great deals right now on Orinoco cards with external antenna connectors, and also on 5.5 and 7.0 dBi gain antenna that will dramatically improve your wireless range. Because we acquire most Orinoco product off-lease in one time deals, be sure to check our online auctions at http://stores.ebay.com/rokland for special deals on cards and antennae that may not be on our web site.
posted at: 22:18 | path: | permanent link to this entry
Is AOL Playing Catchup?
As I have sat here the past few days watching some of the NCAA basketball tournament coverage on CBS, I keep seeing this advertisement for AOL that boast spam and virus protection software, concluding that AOL is an improvement to your basic broadband service.
AOL is not providing customers with anything new- antivirus technology is almost as old as the Internet itself and antispam software has been on store shelves for years. So is there any reason for an individual to pay $10-$20 a month to get these "protection" services for their broadband connection (pricing based on "AOL for Broadband" service which AOL is marketing to customers that have upgraded from dialup)?
If you are using dialup, it may be an incentive to sign up with AOL, because even while AOL should have offered these services years ago, the fact is that most of their competitors still don't. But if you are using a broadband connection, it is much easier (and cheaper) to purchase the software from a vendor like Norton, Zonelabs, McAfee, or Mozilla. While Rokland does not endorse any particular brand, Zonelabs has a free personal firewall called ZoneAlarm that does a great job protecting your PC online. A firewall is not enough though- you also need a strong antivirus program. Norton and McAfee offer good programs but they both charge license fees that are due every quarter or year (depending on the package you get) if you want to continue to get updates.
Another option is the free AntiVir package, which, in our testing, picked up several trojan horses not picked up by Norton Antivirus. This is not to conclude that Norton is inferior- but it would not be desireable to have both programs running at the same time- when we had AntiVir's virus guard running in the background, Norton kept going crazy.
When it comes to antispam technology, Mozilla.org's open source email client called Thunderbird (which has many features of Microsoft Outlook and is, in our opinion, more powerful than Outlook), comes with antispam software built-in. If you are a diehard Outlook user and don't want to change, there is also Norton AntiSpam which does a great job at keeping your inbox spam free.
Obviously you will spend some money to get the programs you need, but depending on how you do it, the cost will probably be much lower than what is offered by AOL.
Shameless plug time: if you want to get antivirus and antispam software on one CD-ROM, you should check out our Rokland Office Suite 2.0 package which is available here on CD-ROM for just $6.99 with free shipping. Get this, then download the free version of Zonelab's Zone Alarm Firewall and you will have everything you need to keep you secure for $6.99, and that, unlike AOL's package, is a onetime fee and not a monthly fee.
posted at: 11:20 | path: | permanent link to this entry
Are All 802.11b Wireless Cards Created Equal?
You have probably seen them on eBay- sellers charging $5.00 for a generic no-name 802.11b wireless PCMCIA card, charging $10.00 for shipping and claiming that the card is "just like D-Link, Netgear, Linksys" in the item title. Is this true? Are all wireless cards created equal? The short answer is no. There is usually a huge difference between most of the cheap generic cards (and routers/access points) and some of the brand name devices like Linksys. That does not mean that a generic card will be nonfunctional or useless. But there is a difference considering the range you will receive.
Different 802.11b cards sometimes have different antennae inside of them. Many Orinoco rebranded cards, which are enterprise level cards and cost upwards of $25.00, have up to 1.5 dBi gain antennae on them and get very good range (can vary depending on the wireless router or access point used). Linksys cards also use a stronger antenna that will allow connections across an entire house and up or down several stories. Most generic cards use a low range antenna that is generally only capable of picking up a wireless signal in the same or next room as the router or access point. They can get a better range if they are in a line-of-sight to the router.
At Rokland we regularly carry all types of cards. You will see we have a Cisco card without attached antenna for just $8.95 plus shipping. This is one of those short-range cards that is recommended for same or next room use. You will also see that we have Lucent Orinoco and Madge brand enterprise level cards. These cards get a much better range. So in addition to considering the price of the card when purchasing, also be sure to determine what kind of range you need. If you are not sure, just ask us.
posted at: 16:17 | path: | permanent link to this entry
Inaugural Post
Welcome to Rokblog, a special blog by Rokland.com. Visit Rokblog on a regular basis for the latest information on our products, important industry news, and other technology-related information. Rokblog is a place where you can find commentary and reviews of many products that we carry and even some that we don't. At Rokland, we want to make sure you find the product that best suits your needs, even if it happens to be one we don't inventory. In addition to product information, Rokblog writers will also reflect on industry news, such as new wireless standards in development that may affect your product selection down the road. So bookmark Rokblog and check back often.
posted at: 13:21 | path: | permanent link to this entry