wirless adapter that supports WPA?

[RonV]

Re: wirless adapter that supports WPA?

That does not operate in "Client Bridge" mode it is truley a "Extender" that creates its own subnet off of your exisitng network. Basically the Buffalo guys stripped down a full blow router into this device.

You can set up Tomato to go into this mode also. But then you are have to run DHCP on this segment and sometimes set up RIP or RIP2 to make sure all the routes in your network are kept up to date.

If you don't need to run multiple devices then Client Bridge is fine. If you need mutiple setup the Tomato as a "Wireless Extender". Simple as that and you save some bucks...

[RonV]

Re: wirless adapter that supports WPA?

Also here is some bad news. Apparently Cisco paid off these guys to keep the linksys products on the market.

As you may be aware, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation ("CSIRO") sued Buffalo, Inc. and Buffalo Technology (USA), Inc. ("Buffalo"), for alleged infringement of United States Patent No. 5,487,069 ("the '069 patent"). Subsequently, CSIRO also asserted its patent against the entire wireless LAN industry, including, Microsoft, Intel, Accton, SMC and Netgear.

In it's lawsuit against Buffalo, CSIRO claimed certain Buffalo wireless networking products compliant with IEEE standards 802.11a and 802.11g infringed upon the '069 patent. Buffalo believed at that time and continues to believe that there are no grounds for CSIRO's allegations of infringement. The United States district court, however, found Buffalo to infringe the '069 patent and enjoined the importation and sale of Buffalo's IEEE 802.11a and 802.11g compliant products.

CSIRO's lawsuits are against the entire wireless LAN industry and could affect the supply of wireless LAN products by any manufacturer, not just Buffalo. The entire industry is resisting CSIRO's attempts to enjoin the sale of wireless LAN products. Recently, Microsoft, 3COM Corporation, SMC Networks, Accton Technology Corporation, Intel, Atheros Communications, Belkin International, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Nortel Networks, Nvidia Corporation, Oracle Corporation, SAP AG, Yahoo, Nokia, and the Consumer Electronics Association filed briefs in support of Buffalo's position that injunctive relief is inappropriate in this case.

During the period of time that the injunction is in effect (10/1/2007), Buffalo cannot offer for sale, sell, import, or use its IEEE 802.11a and 802.11g compliant products in the United States. A list of the products covered by the injunction is attached here . The injunction does not prohibit sales of pre-existing inventories of products by Buffalo's customers. In addition, Buffalo has secured CSIRO's agreement to permit the replacement of defective products under warranty. None of Buffalo's other products are currently affected by this injunction.


While Buffalo believes that it will be successful in reversing the district court's decision and will obtain a stay of the injunction pending a decision on the merits, the Court of Appeals has not yet issued a decision. Should the Court of Appeals issue a decision staying the injunction, you will be promptly notified. After the stay is issued or a favorable decision on the merits is obtained, Buffalo will be able to resume the supply of IEEE 802.11a and 802.11g products

Please rest assured that Buffalo continues to stand behind their products and will continue to support all of our loyal customers as it relates to product warranties, technical support and the like without interruption.

[NA9D]

Re: wirless adapter that supports WPA?

WOW! I HATE these "intellectual property" only companies that exist for one reason: To sue out of business the companies that actually make something useful.

These IP companies are the scourge of business today and are completely anathema to our system of free enterprise.

This was a real post, right, or are you pulling our legs, Ron?

[RonV]

Re: wirless adapter that supports WPA?

Its true....I got this from buffalo when I tried to order a case of the High Performance G routers (WHR-HP-G54) for a project I am building out for a private school...

[MaxH]

Re: wirless adapter that supports WPA?

Yeah, I heard about this yesterday from a friend of mine. If they're actually claiming a copyright on part of the 802.11a and n standards, then either someone is lying, or someone didn't do their due diligence. At least Buffalo isn't alone, all the other manufacturers are lining up behind them, because it's almost impossible that they all won't be next if Buffalo Tech. loses.

[RonV]

Re: wirless adapter that supports WPA?

Its not just A and N its also G. There are many facets to this case.

What gets me is how Cisco managed to opt out from underneath this lawsuit. I wouldn't be surprised if Cisco is partly involved in CSIRO and that is how they got the "Sweetheart" deal to keep their name out of the brief. If I was CSIRO and doing this lawsuit I would have gone after the biggest player with the deepest pockets which would have been CISCO which holds about 60% market share of corporate WAP. In the consumer space Linksys/Cisco says they have 70% of the home router market leaving Buffalo and the rest to share 30%.

[NA9D]

Re: wirless adapter that supports WPA?

I was thinking some more about this and something just doesn't make sense with this lawsuit - a number of things.

1.) The 802.11 standards are just that - standards adopted and published by the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers). Anything published by them in standards form is specifically designed to be adopted across the industry. No one can claim that anyone else is then using their "patent." Of course, things going above and beyond the standard could be proprietary IP such as binding two 802.11a channels together to make a faster link. Each router company has this sort of feature.

2.) The hardware designs for nearly all the routers are all the same for a given chipset. Buffalo doesn't design the wireless router circuit in their routers. Nor does D-Link or Netgear, or Linksys, etc. Rather every router brand uses what are called ODM (original design and manufacturing) shops that are pretty much located in Taiwan. These ODMs rely almost 100% on the reference designs done by the chipset manufacturers. In the case of Buffalo, they use chipsets by Broadcom. Belkin and Linksys also use the Broadcom chipsets. The designs are pretty much exactly to same from brand to brand. That is why a firmware package like DD-WRT or Tomato can be installed on so many different routers. Broadcom in this case developed a reference design and a bill of materials and then provides that to the various ODMs for incorporation into the product. D-Link and Apple tend to use chips from Atheros. Other brands use chipsets from Marvel. The only difference in these designs may be a few extra hardware or software features, but the 802.11a/b/g/n implementations in each in terms of hardware and core firmware are pretty much identical.

So if anyone is going to successfully sue a company for IP infringement, they would first need to sue the IEEE for publishing this standard and second they really should go after the chipset makers. So I don't know how any judge worth his/her salt could go against Buffalo. And I wonder what the merits are of this. I don't know how long CISRO has been in existence but 802.11b came out probably 10 years ago if not longer. And it was the "b" rev of the spec so 802.11a came out before that. I know of a group at Motorola that was working on WiLAN devices back in 1992.

Anyhow, I hope this parasite companies like CISRO, and whatever that blood sucking Unix company is that was in the news several years ago get run out of town on a rail!