Faronics Insight Tech Console - Manual (Page 35)

802.11 Wireless Support
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Insight Tech Console User Guide
802.11 Wireless Support
Tech Console includes a wireless protocol that is automatically selected when the Tech Console
computer senses that it is communicating over a wireless network. This protocol significantly
increases the performance of Tech Console on wireless networks.
Special Hardware Requirements
1. Please make sure that all computers are using the latest NIC (Network Interface Connector)
drivers available from the NIC vendor. The “world of wireless” is similar to the LAN
environment of a decade ago. Wireless network drivers are being updated and improved
frequently.
2. Enterprise Class Access points are recommended. There are two basic types of Access Points:
Residential and Enterprise. The easiest way to differentiate is with the price.
• A “Residential” Access Point will generally sell for around $100 (i.e. LinkSys, DLink, Belkin,
etc...). They work fine in a home environment where several computers will be sharing an
Internet link and perhaps a printer.
• The “Enterprise” Access Point is designed to truly support 50 or more clients at the same time.
They generally sell for around $300. Unless you really have less than five student computers,
you want an “Industrial” class Access Point. (Our favorite is the Meru, but similar products are
produced by HP, Dell, Cisco (NOT the LinkSys division), IBM, etc…)
3. Turn off Power Save on the student computer’s NICs. In our testing we’ve found that Insight
performance is improved as well as the battery life of the computer.
Installation
It is assumed that all wireless computers are associated to the same Access Point. Other than this,
there are no other special installation concerns. Simply run the installation programs on the
student computers, as specified earlier in this installation guide.
Performance
The performance interaction of Remote Controlling Student computers will not be as good over a
wireless network when compared to the performance over a wired network. There is no way to
overcome this.
A wired network can send broadcast and multicast data at 100Mbits per second. An 802.11
wireless network generally sends broadcast and multicast data at 1MBit per second (a mere 1% of
the wired speed).
In addition to the drastic bandwidth reduction of wireless networks, the Access Point architecture
of 802.11 will quite often add significant propagation delays to broadcast and multicast data. This
is due to the Power Save architecture of the 802.11 world.
However, the Insight products have been optimized to have the least possible network bandwidth
impact possible. Even complex screens should appear within three seconds. Simple screen
changes should appear almost immediately.