Real Difference between Bridges an AP

[jorge_lopez]

Does any one know the differences in performance between an APand a Bridge.funcionalities are clearly different,but how do they differ in the wy they work?

thanks

[beth-martin]

These might help:

http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/cc/pd/witc/ao350ap/prodlit/a350m_ds.htm

http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/cc/pd/witc/ao350ap/prodlit/carto_in.htm

[mamoss]

I've had a similar question for some time. I've read the CCO docs and still not come to a conclusive answer. My current understanding is that the bridge has much better properties for long distance links because it uses a proprietary signaling mechanism whilst its not in 802.11b mode, but the AP is just as good at short distances. I don't know if thats a true interpretation of the qualities, but I'd be very interested in other viewpoints on this question, thanks, Mark.

[jkoopmans]

A bridge and an access point are ment for different implementations. An access point is typically used for connecting clients (PCs) and a bridge is typically used for a link between buildings (site-to-site). A bridge can do everything which an access point can do but an access point can not be used in a site-to-site connection because it can not talk to another bridge/access point and still use his ethernet port. The ethernet port is disabled in this config.

Joost Koopmans

[shaun.oliver]

The 802.11b standard only allows for a certain amount of time between packets (part of the collision avoidance algorithm in CSMA/CA). Over larger distances, the time taken for the radio signal to "travel" between points exceeds the allowed timeout.

Thus, to communicate over larger distances, the bridges can increase this timeout (hence the "distance" settings). This is outside the 802.11b standard, so Cisco uses proprietry methods to achieve this.