3Com Builds Wireless Bridge

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Wireless bridging solutions span the gap of networks between multiple buildings, across roads and highways, and even to the remotest of locations like an oil rig or firefighting outpost. Although bridging solutions are an established tool of any 802.11b wireless network, customers have found choices limited due to proprietary protocols. To offer customers greater mobility and flexibility, 3Com Corporation (Nasdaq: COMS) today announced the 3Com® Wireless LAN Building-to-Building Bridge, an enhanced bridging solution that is the first to be compatible with any Wi-Fi certified access point, easily fitting within a multi-vendor wireless infrastructure. "Wireless networking gives organizations a reliable way to link an increasingly mobile and dynamic workforce," said Patrick Guay, vice president and general manager, LAN Infrastructure Division, 3Com's Business Networks Company. "With the new 3Com Wireless LAN Building-to-Building Bridge, organizations can now link multiple buildings in a campus over a greater distance, and in a simpler way, while taking advantage of powerful features including security and network management enhancements." The new 3Com Wireless LAN Building-to-Building Bridge offers a cost-effective alternative to laying cable and can quickly provide connections between temporary locations such as trailers in construction sites or temporary classrooms in educational settings. The new bridge is an updated version from the successful original launched in June 2001 and now supports a distance of up to 15 miles at 11 Mbps. Organizations can set up the wireless bridge in point-to-point and point-to-multipoint configurations covering distances of 300 meters up to 20,000 meters depending upon the antenna used. To keep wireless information secure, the 3Com Wireless LAN Building-to-Building Bridge supports both 40-bit and 128-bit Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP). The wireless bridge is also transparent to Virtual Private Network protocols, using a special encapsulation protocol to avoid conflicts with other tunneling protocols. 3Com Corp.