I am trying to put together a project to roll out wireless communications on our different sites. Currently when travelling to the different sites, the user has to take an ethernet cable along with them and hope that there is a near-by wall socket.

As we are also rolling out iPhones and all of the notebooks have either 11g or 11n integrated, I'm putting together a budget for rolling out wireless access points at least in the main buildings and/or meeting rooms.

There are plenty of access points out there. Currently we have Lancoms in use (54g models). They are a little pricey and slow (supporting max 11g, no 11n devices in their portfolio at the moment).

What I need is an access point that has the following features:

• The access point needs to support virtual networks - we want two address ranges, one for employees (internal network access) and a second address range going direct to the Internet for visitors
• g and n capability, if possible
• Support for WEP2 with AES
• RADIUS support - optional

We don't currently implement RADIUS, we only have a few employees who travel between sites, so it isn't currently cost effective, but it would be nice to have it available for future expansion.

The problem is, most comparison websites only list the key features, but things like virtual networks and RADIUS support aren't mentioned very often...

My parents have got one of these and I'd highly recommend it. I think it does what you want, but off the top of my head, I'm not 100%.

Hmm, the spec sheet says that it doesn't support 802.11n, but "Atheros 108Mbos Super G Technology"...

The Apple Airport Extreme doesn't look bad, it uses 2.4 and 5Ghz bands and will allow g access on 2.4, whilst still running 5ghz at n speeds. It just doesn't seem to offer virtual networks...

If you want two wireless networks, it would probably be easiest and cheapest to use two more basic access points and let the existing router do the routing.

Given you can get broadband for a few pounds, you might even consider having the guest network 100% separate. Just use an economical wireless ADSL router on it's own line.

You can do that stuff with most of the Netgear Prosafe access points, his one can do 16 SIDs for you...
http://uk.insight.com/apps/productprese ... NGENA05SNI

Or Zyxel have this...
http://www.zyxel.co.uk/web/product_fami ... 476AD53E7D

I've not used either of those specific APs, but both those ranges are generally good.

I'm assuming you have the necessary VLAN support on the rest of your network though?

Thanks for that ShockWaffle, the Netgear device looks interesting.

JJW, space, number of wall ports and the cost of DSL are problems.

Whilst home DSL connections are relatively cheap, a business connection isn't very cheap and, given how little it will probably be used, at least at first, a second router on a separate DSL connection isn't an answer.Using the virtual networks on one professional router is a much better option for us.