Do you see before a wireless AP without network cable?

Yes, for IT literate person, this is not a big deal, they know this kind of technology call “bridging”

During I at Maktab Perguruan Perlis (Teacher’s college), when I testing the network point in the libraly, I saw this device, look like very pro, and high tech also~ after look clearly, no network cable one 😕

♫♫♫ ~ London bridge is falling down …♫♫♫… falling down …♫♫♫… falling down …♫♫♫… London bridge is falling down …♫♫♫… my fair lady~ ♫♫♫

Does this sound familiar for you? but bridging is not actually a bridge~ is just a concept, how it work?

Wireless Bridging

A wireless bridge is a hardware component used to connect two or more network segments which are physically separated. Consumers have been presented with wireless bridges operating on the 802.11 standard. Wireless bridges usually work only in pairs or more, and can be used in two types of implementations. They are the point-to-point link, or the point to multipoint link.

In point to point link, there are a pair of bridges which are used to connect two network segments, typically in two separate buildings. In a point to multipoint scenario, one bridge is installed as the “root bridge”, and multiple non-root bridges connect to this root bridge. With this arrangement, if one non-root network segment wants to pass data to the other non-root segment, it passes it through the root bridge.

During bridge setup, all the bridges must be set to the same service set identifier (SSID) and radio channel.

This college is upgrading their facilities, they plan to use wired instead of bridging, for sure the performance of wired will be better then wireless.

My experience
People are using wireless bridging due to few option such as:

1. No extra cost for cabling
2. Place not convenience to pull network cable. eg.building to building

I found that there are 4 of this AP at 2nd floor of library, and downstairs have 1 main AP with wired.

This router AP are strong, is for office use, the coverage are more wide. All other AP upstair are bridge with this AP. This AP are connected with wire.

If you ask my opinion, personally I feel that with this AP at downstairs will more then enough to cover the whole library, but don’t why they still putting another 4 AP upstairs.

All the AP are label with “hak kerajaan Malaysia” , mean “government property” 😕