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Wireless Networking
A brief history: or who's who?
Initially the Lucent wireless networking product line was known as Wavelan and later re-branded at ORiNOCO. It is no secret that Apple's initial wireless products were based on ORiNOCO technology from Lucent's Agere microelectronics division. While ORiNOCO products are sold by both Agere and Avaya (another AT+T/Lucent spin-off) this represented a small fraction of their production. Agere sells most of its production to other companies such as Apple who then incorporate into their own products. In 2002 Agere announced that this product line was being sold to Proxim.
Apple's Implementation
Apple was the first vendor to provide support for wireless networking across their product line, starting with the black PowerBooks, the original iMacs, iBooks and the first G4 machines. In making this commitment to wireless Apple designed wireless antennas into the cases of the iMacs and laptop displays as well as the G4 machines. These antennas typically offer better reception than that available from a PCMCIA card with an integrated antenna, which is by design, blocked in one direction by the case of the laptop or desktop into which the PCMCIA card is inserted. The one complaint about reception of the Apple-provided antennae is in the design of the Titanium PowerBook - which is limited in reception due to the case being entirely metal.
Apple Airport Base Stations
The reception of client computers may be affected by the location and the orientation of the Airport Base Station. Signal Strength may often be improved by changing the orientation of the Airport Base Station, or/and moving it to avoid interfering objects (large brick or stone works as chimneys, large metal objects as refrigerators, etc.)
Some household electronics may interfere with the radio waves carrying the wireless network signals (microwave ovens, 2.4GHz cordless phones or video cameras, etc.) If there is a loss of signal or severe interference, check the phone instructions to see if it has a switch to use a different portion of the 2.4GHz spectrum, or try changing the channels used by the Airport Base Station.
With the (2001) White Airport Base Station, the antenna is located on the top (pointy) side of the unit, thus the signal is weaker behind or beneath the base or flat side. With the Graphite base station, the construction is slightly different, as it utilizes the antenna built into the ORiNOCO WaveLan radio card. |
