Console wireless networking equipment

Console wireless networking equipment
In case we haven’t made it abundantly clear in our discussion so far, we
reiterate: None of the consoles that we’ve discussed comes with any kind of
built-in wireless LAN capabilities, and none of the networking kits or adapters
that you need to buy from the console maker includes wireless LAN equipment.
What all these consoles do have, when outfitted for online gaming, is
an Ethernet port. This will undoubtedly change, but for now that’s it.
And really, that’s all you need, thanks to the availability of relatively inexpensive
wireless Ethernet bridges. The deeper you get into the networking world,
the more likely you are to run into the concept of a bridge, which is simply a
device that connects two segments of a network together. Unlike hubs or
switches or routers or most other network equipment (we talk about a lot of
this stuff back in Chapters 2 and 5), a bridge doesn’t do anything with the
data flowing through it. It basically just passes the data straight through without
manipulating it, rerouting it, or even caring what it is. A wireless Ethernet
bridge’s sole purpose in life, then, is to send data back and forth between two
points. (Not too tough to see where the name came from, huh?)
While we’re discussing these wireless Ethernet bridges in terms of game consoles
networks in this chapter, they’re actually quite handy devices that can
be used for a lot of different applications in your wireless LAN. Basically, any
device that has an Ethernet port — such as a TiVo or ReplayTV personal
video recorder (PVR), an MP3 server (such as the AudioReQuest), even an
Internet refrigerator (such as Samsung’s Internet Refrigerator) — can hook
into your wireless home network using a wireless Ethernet bridge.
Wireless Ethernet bridges are a relatively new phenomenon in the wireless
LAN world — which is really saying something considering the fact that wireless
LANs have been a mainstream technology for only a couple of years. As
we write, only a couple of wireless Ethernet bridges are on the market. We
don’t expect this situation to last — our contacts at just about every wireless
networking equipment company that we know tell us that they, too, are working
on their own products in this category.
As we write, you can find two widely available models, which we discuss in
detail momentarily:
D-Link’s D-LinkAir DWL-810
Linksys WET11
Both of these wireless Ethernet bridges use the common 11 Mbps 802.11b
system. That means that they won’t work on the faster 802.11a networking
system. They should work on the new 802.11g system but only at the lower
802.11b 11 Mbps speed (which should be fast enough for your gaming
needs!). Also, keep in mind that although 802.11b gear is supposed to work on
802.11g networks, a lot of “g” gear is pretty new on the market and has not
yet undergone extensive interoperability testing.
The great thing about wireless Ethernet bridges — besides the fact that they
solve the very real problem of getting non-computer devices onto the wireless
network — is that they are the essence of Plug and Play. You might have
to spend three or four minutes setting up the bridge itself (getting it connected
to your wireless network), but you don’t need to do anything special
to your game console besides plug the bridge in. All the game consoles that
we discuss in this chapter (at least when equipped with the appropriate network
adapters and software) will “see” your wireless Ethernet bridge as just a
regular Ethernet cable. You don’t need any drivers or other special software
on the console. The console doesn’t know (nor does it care in its not-so-little
console brain) that there’s a wireless link in the middle of the connection. It
just works!
Not many wireless Ethernet bridges are on the market yet, and none are yet
available in the faster 802.11a or 802.11g flavors of wireless LANs. We fully
expect that to change and to change fast. So if you’re using one of these
newer technologies in your LAN, don’t despair. Keep an eye on the vendor
Web sites or on one of the other wireless LAN news sites that we discuss in
Chapter 20. You’ll probably see a solution for your network before too long.
D-LinkAir DWL-810
D-Link (www.dlink.com) has developed this product with gaming consoles in
mind. And in fact, D-Link even has its own online Gamer’s Haven site with lots
of great gaming information on it (games.dlink.com). The $129 list price
DWL-810 (see Figure 12-2) doesn’t need any special drivers or configuration
but does include a Web-browser based configuration program that enables
you to do things like enter your Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) keys. (Check
out Chapter 10 for more information on this.)

Figure 12-2:
The D-Link
DWL-810
Ethernet
bridge.
Because this bridge can also be used to connect to wired Ethernet hubs and
switches, you need to use a special kind of Ethernet cable — a crossover
cable — to connect the DWL-810 to your console. (A crossover cable is basically
an Ethernet cable that’s used to interconnect two computers by crossing
over [reversing] their respective pin assignments.) Luckily, D-Link
includes one in the box — just remember to use that cross-over cable and
not a regular Ethernet cable when you hook things up. If you use this bridge
with one of D-Link’s access points, you can actually take advantage of their
proprietary system that speeds up the network to throughputs up to 22 Mbps.
Linksys WET11
The Linksys WET11 ($129; www.linksys.com), like the DWL-810, allows an
easy connection between any Ethernet device and your Wi-Fi network. The
only substantial difference between the WET11 and the DWL-810 is the addition
of an uplink switch on the WET11. Instead of using a cross-over cable to
connect to a game console (or any other individual device), you simply slide
a switch on the back of the WET11 to a particular position. On the WET11
devices that we’ve seen, the switch position for connecting to game consoles
is labeled X — the position labeled II is used for connecting to a hub or
switch. Because of this switch, you use a standard straight-through Ethernet
cable with the WET11 instead of a cross-over Ethernet cable.