Proxim Symphony

Wireless connectivity with your H/PC

The term "mobile professional" conjures up images of rental cars and business lunches. But there is another kind of mobile professional, one who may never leave the office. You'll find these "office mobile professionals" in a meeting somewhere in the building, or on the way to one, or checking up on a project. They may have a permanent desk, but they're rarely sitting at it. And yet they still need to access important e-mail and other data from their personal computer or company LAN. This is why PC Companions were designed.

Symphony: LAN without cables

Symphony is a wireless LAN for home or small office use. A Local Area Network (LAN) is a group of computers linked together to share data. A wireless LAN uses radio transceivers attached to the LAN or computer to send and receive data over the air, minimizing the need for wired connections and enabling highly mobile users to access the data they need wherever they find themselves.

Symphony transfers data wirelessly at 1.6 megabits per second and is limited to 150 feet of coverage, with a maximum of 10 devices connected at one time. Symphony offers wireless transceivers in PC Card, ISA Card, modem and Ethernet bridge formats, allowing the user to connect a variety of devices together into a single wireless LAN. For users that need a longer distance or more devices, Proxim created the RangeLAN2 product which offers coverage up to 500 feet indoors and 1000 feet outdoors.

Handheld PC wireless connection

Symphony lets you link to other computers wirelessly, and while the office mobile professional would hardly carry even a small notebook computer around the office, they would carry a PC Companion.

Handheld PC users can connect to a Symphony network using one of two cards: The RangeLAN2 7400 PC Card and the Symphony Cordless PC Card. The RangeLAN2 card is the most straightforward solution. H/PC Pro systems already have the drivers built in, and most Windows CE 2.0 Handheld PCs will work with this card, if you install a special driver available on the Proxim Web site: www.proxim.com. [Note: Proxim has recently come out with a device that also works with H/PCs: the RangeLAN2 CE PC Card, priced at $295.]

Proxim does not officially support the use of the Symphony Cordless PC Card with the H/PC, but it is easy to implement and works well. I tested this card because it is the least expensive option available, $400 less than the RangeLAN2 7400 PC Card, and $100 less than the new RangeLAN2 CE PC Card. (See sidebar below for more on configuring the Symphony Cordless PC Card to work with an H/PC).

How I tested Symphony

I installed Symphony on my desktop PC and connected an "Ethernet Bridge" to it. The Ethernet Bridge is a small transceiver that communicates with the Symphony Cordless PC Card or RangeLAN2 cards in an H/PC. Together, this let my H/PC link to my existing 10baseT network. I was able to bridge TCP/IP traffic without configuring the Ethernet Bridge. In order to use Windows CE Services, I had to install the Symphony card in my laptop PC and configure it. This allowed the Symphony PC Card to communicate via the Ethernet Bridge to my desktop for synchronization. The Symphony ISA card or modem do not require this configuration because they do not maintain a list of devices they know about.

This technology allows users to access the Web and synchronize their H/PC or H/PC Pro at higher speeds than the soon-to-be-released Bluetooth technology. Bluetooth is slower .

Once you have your Proxim Symphony PC Card you can synchronize with your desktop. If you want to surf the Internet you must purchase the Symphony Modem and configure Pocket Internet Explorer to use a proxy server and enter 10.0.0.1 as the proxy's address.

Symphony offers a low cost option to wiring a LAN for a home or a small office.

Proxim Wireless LAN solutions

Proxim offers complete wireless LAN solutions for small and large organizations. These include RangeLAN2 "Access Points" (transmitter/receivers that connect to the wired LAN) and RangeLAN2 7400 PC Cards (transmitter/receivers for mobile devices like the Handheld PC). Proxim recently announced the RangeLAN2 CE PC Card, a wireless LAN solution designed specifically for Windows CE Handheld PCs and H/PC Pros. *

RangeLAN2 CE PC Card -- $295

Symphony Cordless PC Card -- $199

RangeLAN2 7400 PC Card -- $595

Driver software -- free; RangeLAN2 Access Points - contact Proxim Phone:800-229-1630; Fax: 650-960-1984; Web: www.proxim.com.

Screen1: Proxim's Ethernet Bridge (center) is a small transceiver that connects to an existing LAN, allowing H/PCs with a Proxim Symphony Cordless PC Card or RangeLAN2 card to link wireless with the LAN.

Configuring the Symphony PC Card for an H/PC

The Symphony PC Card must be configured to use an address in 10.0.0.2 through 10.0.0.255 with a subnet of 255.0.0.0 in order to interoperate with the other configured Symphony devices. Also you must know the IP address of your PC's Symphony card. You can identify the address from the Control Panel - Network application on your desktop. This address should be entered as your WINS server in order to synchronize with your desktop.

The first thing you have to do is download and install a special driver available on the Proxim Web site: www.proxim.com. Then on your H/PC, tap on Start - Settings - Control Panel - Network and select the Proxim driver. Then configure the card with the information you gathered above. Once this is complete you are ready to access your network.

Next, tap on the Proxim icon on your H/PC's task bar and edit the card's properties. You'll see the node address, master address and network domain. This is where you set the Domain (the channel number) and Security ID. All stations must use the same Domain and Security ID in order to communicate. Symphony only supports Domain 0.

The Site Survey tab allows you to search for all Master access points and then test the link quality. This allows you to identify dead zones in your location. The Advanced tab allows you to adjust roaming information as well as inactivity timeouts in seconds and minutes.

Your Symphony PC Card is now configured and can be used with a Proxim Symphony wireless LAN.