Does anyone know the differences between bridges and access points? Are they the same thing? And wireless bridges vs wireless access points. I am so lost here.

from my point of view i can define an Access Point as where you wireless clients can join a network.

A wireless bridge is where two wire networks can be joined. Now wireless bridging falls outside of the 802.1 protocols (this is what the manufacturers told me) thus two bridges need to be the same make to work, eg netgear and netgear, buffalo and buffalo for example. however they don't need to be identical bridges.

eg the Buffalo WLA-G54 can talk to another WLA-G54 or a WBR-G54, but not a bridge from D-Link, but it CAN talk to wireless PCI cards and centrino notebooks of any manufacturer because they are CLIENT machines and not bridges..

So access points will accept clients from any make, as this is the standard, but bridges will only communicate with like bridges.

i hope this is understandable...

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by FiL on 11/11/03 08:51 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

lol, it's ok, it was informative for me, as i only knew the function of a wireless bridge...now i know the old wire bridge's function

When u r talking about a simple Access Point w/o bridging capabilities... u have to plug it into ur router or where ever u want to...

When u r talking about a Wireless Bridgr or an Access Point with Bridging capability, you don't need to run a cable... u can have this Access Point/Bridge just plugged into a power outlet and make it extend ur network ..... no cables...


for example u have a wireless router and 3 wireless computers.... and two of them are getting good signals from the wireless router and not the 3rd computer....

What are ur options to stay wireless and still make the third comp work? Get a simple Access Point and plug it into the router with a 50ft cable and kepp it somewhere near to the 3rd comp.. Is it really wireles? no...

so u have to get an AccessPoint with bridging functionality and kepp it away from the router(No cable here) and set up a wireless bridge between the router and this Access Point..

Keep in mind that both the router and the Access Point need to support Wireless Bridging and also be compatible.

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it's best to keep all your bridges/Access Points and wireless routers from the same maker...my house is all Buffalo, but i'm sure Netgear/D-Link work too.
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u r absolutely correct.

Some mfg's have AP's w/o bridging and AP's with bridging..... which eventually work only with same brand products...

the only problem is when someone goes to the store they will be sold some AP's with out bridging capabilities and that's exactly where most of the people land in trouble once they come to know that they have to run a cable between the router and the new AP.