It turns out that the AP431 (and any AP Relay) cannot use WPA for security. So, the best that can be done is WEP 128 (or higher) encryption, along with MAC address filtering. This works well. I found that originally I had an omnidirectional 10 DBI antenna at my friend’s house. I was getting sputtering throughput. When I replaced it with a 14dbi directional antenna, the throughput went up dramatically. We also learned that though the manufacturer (Airlink) says DHCP works, my experience was that we had to use static IP addresses for reliability.

Here are some photos of the AP’s in use.

The AP on my rooftop with the neighbor’s
AP-relay off in the distance (click to enlarge)

The AP configured as an AP Relay on my neighbor’s roof.
(Click to enlarge and open)

Click HERE to see the full Network Diagram Or Click HERE to see a PDF of the Network Diagram.

Read the full story of the Best Home Network contest at Cisco’s web site.

One of Cisco’s FIRST multi-point telepresence conferences with active participants in Sydney, Europe, North Carolina and San Jose (Andrew is on the far right of the picture, next to Cisco’s VP of the IT dept.)

Each of us presented our network and discussed its technical features.