Re: [Aironet] ACU

[Jim V. <jv...@ci...>]

On Thu, May 24, 2001 at 12:38:09PM -0500, Brian Pence wrote:
> Thank you for your reply!
> 
> So what this means then is that with the new ACU,
> 40 bit WEP is no longer possible??  That's pretty 
> absurd if you ask me.

No,
our normal cards can still use 40 bit keys if they so desire,
but ONLY in enterprise mode.
The restriction against 40 bit keys is in HOME mode only.

> 
> My particular problem with this is that the ACU 4.10
> refuses to operate under Windows XP.  It doesn't crash
> or anything, but exits and claims that it is 'incompatible
> with this version of Windows'.  The new ACU will run,
> but now the card only works with WEP disabled.

Ouch - I can't say I have ever tried an older ACU under XP.

> Is this principally a marketing thing??  The technology
> is obviously there because the older ACU makes it work.  
> The card is *technically* and AIR-PCM341, which does include
> 40-bit WEP.  Is Cisco basically telling me that I don't
> really need WEP at all in a home configuration?  Or, is the
> message really '40 bit isn't really any good, it's 128 or nothin'

It's a marketing thing.
Those cards were created for the sole purpose of being resold through
Dell, and that was a legacy Aironet product/marketing scheme, not Cisco.
I don't pretend to understand marketing - I just work here ;-)

Jim

-- 
     |          |         Jim Veneskey
    :|:        :|:        Software Test Engineer
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