Finally - a Minitar Replacement

This web site is hosted FREE by Servin Mervin

Since the Minitar MNWAPB was discontinued, we have not been able to recommend a bullet proof product that was cheap and worked well as a client access point. Various units have come close but have been either too expensive, underperformers, or required warranty voiding firmware modification, as is the case with the Linksys WRT54G. I was amazed that Minitar discontinued the MNWAPB as it filled a niche market, lacking only one feature, which was 802.11G mode. After many months of waiting however, from the same manufacturers as the Minitar MNWAPB comes the UltraWAP, and thanks to www.freenet-antennas.com who are the importers, we have had the privilege to be able to review a pair of pre-release units .

Good news people, the UltraWAP is just like it's predecessor the MNWAPB, with the addition of 802.11G mode. It still has the same friendly Graphical User Interface, with the same English translation errors, but now it's in colour. The Default settings are all the same, as is the default password, and the menu structure - and this is great, because you won't have to remember a whole un-necessary additional set of defaults when working with the new UltraWAP . It's even the same size, even though the case has varied a little - which means that you can just fit it in to the same waterproof housing that you have always used for the original Minitars . It still has an RPSMA connector which is a little fragile and hard to work with, but once again will plug straight in to an existing Minitar installation.

Testing the UltraWAP

We have tested the UltraWAP extensively, comparing it to it's predecessor the MNWAPB, the Linksys WRT54G running Sveasoft, and the Senao NLxxxx xxxx. The results have been somewhat surprising in many ways, demonstrating that signal strength isn't everything. During testing we compare a few things - we don't rely only on the graphically friendly yet often misleading signal strength results from netstumbler as our only guide, preferring a combination of real life tests including flood ping results (ping -f xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx), file transfer speed tests, and lastly the go-no-go "can I get a web page" test in marginal areas. Experience has taught us that ordinary "ping" tests are almost useless test indicators, as they are too simplistic, and will often "look" good long after network functionality has failed due to excessive packet loss. Radio issues aside, we also consider firmware stability, flexibility, and ease of use, along with power supply requirements.

During testing we saw pretty much what we expected, as we were testing the UltraWAP against units with double the rated transmit power - the UltraWAP transmits 60 mW, whilst the Senao and the Linksys transmit 120 mW or more, so what we saw was consistently stronger signals from the other two units compared to the UltraWAP. What we found that did surprise us was that the stronger signals did not always mean better performance - particularly in the case of the Senao. Note that the Linksys as it is supplied only transmits 28 mW, and requires after market firmware to access the higher power selection.

Down our test range, we found that the more powerful AP's did pack more punch in the really marginal areas, with the signal getting through the trees just a little better than the UltraWAP, but in moderate signal areas, the UltraWAP out performed the Senao HANDS DOWN in 802.11B mode, consistently maintaining file transfer speeds of SEVEN OR EIGHT TIMES what we were getting out of the Senao under the same conditions!!!!! By comparison, the Linksys maintained similar transfer rates to the UltraWAP. The UltraWAP performs about as well as the old Minitar in all respects.

We next compared all of the access points in 802.11G mode, and this was where the higher powered units won outright, we would estimate the higher powered units had perhaps 30% better range than the Minitar did, with similar performance across the three of them in moderate to good signal strength areas.

Powering the UltraWAP couldn't be easier - it is supplied with a 12V plug pack, but will happily operate between the ranges of about four to 26 volts, and fortunately for idiots like me it won't die if accidentally reverse polarised. This makes it ideal for Power Over Ethernet, as it is not sensitive to voltage copper losses. It draws about 200mA at 12 Volts.

Firmware stability and ease of use are two very important aspects of the operation of an access point, and this is where the UltraWAP finds it's niche, as it has the most stable and easy to use firmware of any access point that we have worked with. For remote operation, you just set a Minitar up and forget it - we have had uptimes in the hundreds of days for old Minitars on the network. They are a robust client unit that readily re-acquires the network when it drops out - this is a feature that both the old Minitar and the UltraWAP share. By comparison, the firmware on the Senao is utter crap, and the Linksys requires warranty-voiding after market firmware that can be risky to install before it can be used as a client.

What the above means, is that the UltraWAP is the only high performance access point that has client mode as standard that is available in Australia currently (Yes some D-links have client mode but I said High Performance!). It's ULTRA reliable, easy to use, install and power. For Line Of Sight wireless links it's hard to go past. A modified Linksys WRT54G series has some advantages in terms of power output, and the availability of a built in router, but these advantages are traded off in many situations by the requirement to install after market firmware, ease of use, and ease of mounting - the Linksys because of it's size can be a pig to squeeze in to a waterproof box.

The UltraWAP will replace the MNWAP as the access point of choice that we recommend as a client device on the community wireless network