Although in terms of domestic broadband provision, we may lie close to the bottom of the European League, there is at least the consolation that wireless ‘Hot Spots’ are springing up in various convivial locations around the country.
Mainly to be found in hotels, and the odd coffee bar, these facilities enable anybody with a suitably equipped notebook to log on and browse the Internet from wherever they happen to be sitting. All one needs is a Wi-Fi equipped notebook.
If you shelled out for a Centrino notebook in the last year, such connectivity is built into your computer, but if you have an older portable model or indeed require a more powerful Pentium 4-based computer than the Pentium 3 core around which Centrino technology is built, then you have to equip yourself with suitable Wi-Fi connectivity.
Fear not! Wireless connectivity is less than €50 away thanks to the SparkLAN Wireless USB adapter. Just pop it into a USB port, install the software on the accompanying CD-ROM (it takes all of two minutes) and you’re away.
My testing of this took place in the coffee bar at UCD’s Carysfort campus on a Saturday afternoon. Granted, at such times most students have better things to do than send e-mails or surf the Web, so the contention ratio was a bit low, but even so the results were staggering: Web browsing was noticeably quicker than using our office’s normal Fast Ethernet LAN and T1 leased-line connection. However, on a busy lunchtime close to assignment deadlines, perhaps there would be more congestion on the University wireless LAN and consequently a more sluggish performance.
The WL-385F model tested here supports the 802.11b standard, which provides an 11Mbit/s wireless bridge between the notebook and the wireless base station. The software provides a number of modes of operation. In Infrastructure mode it can make use of a Local Access Point, whether a node on a corporate network or a public Hot Spot.
In Ad Hoc mode, the adapter allows the notebook to communicate with any other computer within range that is equipped with a similar SparkLAN adapter. There is no need for an access point in this mode.
The USB card comes with 128Mbyte of Flash memory, operates at 11Mbit/s in the 2.4GHz frequency band and can make use of 64 or 128bit WEP encryption. It works with Windows 98SE, Windows 2000, Millennium Edition or XP.
Bottom Line
Very Good
Idiot-proof wireless connectivity for Windows PCs. Simple to install and impressively quick.
Price: €49 (typical street price)
Contact: GV Distribution 01-8206210
04/05/04
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