Cisco Aironet series 340 Access Point

norm · 05-20-2002

Just wondered if there are any others who've had experience with this particular component and may be able to tell me how it performs. As im in a position to buy one atm.

Thanks

Damacles · 05-21-2002

The 340 series only has a 30mW radio, whereas the 350 series has a 100mW (US Spec) or for us poor unfortunates in the UK, a 50mW radio. The 350 also supports Power over Ethernet, which the 340 does not...
A couple of the biggest advantages of the Cisco gear are
1) WEP encryption is hardware based, so you only lose like 2 or 3 percent throughput when you use encryption, as oppsed to the 10 to 15 percent drop in performance found with some of your other AP vendors
2) The security features with the latest firmware is the mutts nuts (although some of it is Cisco proprietry and wont work in a multivendor environment - at least until 802.11i comes into being) and features such things as:
* EAP authentication (EAP-TLS or EAP-Cisco - Dynamic, per-user, per-session WEP keying which can also be configured to rotate over a time period to ensure never enough data is transmitted to crack the key - Requires integration with a supported RADIUS server tho', like Cisco ACS, or Funk Steelbelted RADIUS)
* TKIP - Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (Per Packet Keying)
* MIC - Message Integrity Check (like a checksum, ish)
* Broadcast WEP key rotation.

Recent rumour I heard was that Cisco invited the guys from Airsnort to come along and bust into the encryption, and they couldn't. I don't know how true that is though.

Hope that Helps

Dama

05-20-2002	#1 (permalink)
norm Registered Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: UK Posts: 69	Cisco Aironet series 340 Access Point Just wondered if there are any others who've had experience with this particular component and may be able to tell me how it performs. As im in a position to buy one atm. Thanks

05-21-2002	#2 (permalink)
Damacles Registered Member Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 2	They r ok... The 340 series only has a 30mW radio, whereas the 350 series has a 100mW (US Spec) or for us poor unfortunates in the UK, a 50mW radio. The 350 also supports Power over Ethernet, which the 340 does not... A couple of the biggest advantages of the Cisco gear are 1) WEP encryption is hardware based, so you only lose like 2 or 3 percent throughput when you use encryption, as oppsed to the 10 to 15 percent drop in performance found with some of your other AP vendors 2) The security features with the latest firmware is the mutts nuts (although some of it is Cisco proprietry and wont work in a multivendor environment - at least until 802.11i comes into being) and features such things as: * EAP authentication (EAP-TLS or EAP-Cisco - Dynamic, per-user, per-session WEP keying which can also be configured to rotate over a time period to ensure never enough data is transmitted to crack the key - Requires integration with a supported RADIUS server tho', like Cisco ACS, or Funk Steelbelted RADIUS) * TKIP - Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (Per Packet Keying) * MIC - Message Integrity Check (like a checksum, ish) * Broadcast WEP key rotation. Recent rumour I heard was that Cisco invited the guys from Airsnort to come along and bust into the encryption, and they couldn't. I don't know how true that is though. Hope that Helps Dama

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