Mixing 802.11 Equipment

You have an investment in your existing Wi-Fi equipment when an attractive new wireless technology hits the market. Thankfully, you don't need to trash your existing hardware. You can likely integrate the equipment to help you save money and get more life out of your initial networking hardware.

If you add an Ethernet hub to your network, you can connect more than one access point to the hub, which can serve as a bridge between 802.11b, 802.11a, and Ethernet networks. Thankfully, new network technologies, such as a faster form of 802.11b networking hardware that operates at 22 megabits per second, is starting to arrive, and the technology is backward-compatible with older 11 megabits per second 802.11b equipment. And, as mentioned, 802.11b and newer, faster 802.11g networking hardware are compatible.

In the future we will see new wireless technologies that might or might not be able to work with your older equipment. But be assured that you can buy useful, fast wireless equipment later, and you can add a hub or buy backward-compatible hardware to meet your needs.