Just wondering if anyone has figured out if it's possible for a karlnet client (SEC, not turbocell) to talk to a Mikrotik AP (not using nstreme). I realize, turbocell protocol will not work with Mikrotik because it's proprietary and all but dead now since proxim took it over.

We have Mikrotik clients successfully talking to Orinoco AP 500's and 1000's but so far have not been successful the other way around.

Any help or ideas would be appreciated, otherwise, we are stuck with supporting the karlnet devices forever.

RouterOS AP is 100% compatible with 802.11a/b/g standards if device in interest also is then there should be no problems.

I cannot get it to talk. The MT AP sees them online, however; the clients cannot even see the SSID. I really need this to work so we do not have to change out all our clients with new equipment.

From what I remember the firmware changed thing up a bit so I don't think it will work. But then again I haven't looked at Karlnet in years. Do the units work with other standerd APs like Linksys?

No, that is just it. We have tried with a simple Netgear and no encryption, nothing. Now, we are using the latest firmware of 5.10. It seems the SEC clients will connect to an SEC Karlnet AP as will any other 802.11 compliant device. We use the heck out of Tenx and Highgain clients with no trouble on our Karlnet SEC AP's.

We are going to try other firmwares and hope...but I do not have much.

Let me see if I have this right. The Karlnet CPE will not connect to anything but Karlnet APs. But other brands of CPEs will connect to Karlnet APs.
If this is the problem I would stop using Karlnet. It sound like it may only be a bigger problem in the future. Maybe on new POPs use MT APs and anything but Karlnet as the CPE.
I'm sorry I can't help more, with out haveing a Karlnet CPE I have no idea how to configure the MT APs to work with them.
I can tell you that years ago when I started moving to Atheros radios I had hell with my CB3s so I had to slowly move them around from the new network to the old one till I finely updated the older network and removed the older prism radios.
Now I only have MT APs and CPEs and from the looks of the Karlnet pricing you could do the same.

What are the good points of using Karlnet?

Karlnet AP's in 802.11 compatible mode (SEC) will allow any client 802.11 client to connect. However, the Karlnet SEC clients will not connect to just any 802.11 AP. Darn Karlnet. It was a purchased network that really functions well.

We are actively moving away from the Karlnet AP's. One of the things they do very well is MAC authentication and until recently, not many AP's supported this, including MT. We are a large dialup provider and authenticating with Radius is our life.

Advantages of Karlnet in Turbocell mode are the proprietary polling similar to Nstreme. The Turbo cell will really cut through the interference. We are having a devil of a time with the one tower we switched out to MT. The radio in the MT is stronger (400 mW) but we have worse signals and a ton of interference. Nothing is showing up on the scans though. I am starting to wonder if it is the wireless card we are using. The 5.8 Ghz customers are rocking and rolling. Only the 2.4 is being affected. Looks like we are using the AR5413 card, I am considering changing to a 400 mW B only card.

I should have updated this a long time ago, we have successfully connected karlnet SEC's to a MT AP. It works good, now if there was only a way to connect karlnet turbocell to MT AP we would be in business!!!

We cannot seem to get our SEC Clients to connect. When doing an Analyze, Wireless Link Test, we do not see the AP. Perhaps it is a firmware version issue with the Karlnet SEC clients. What version of the firmware are you guys using? We are currently using 5.10, but I can always downgrade.

Well this is giving us hope...

Forgot to update the forum with my findings. You can in fact connect a Karlnet SEC client to a Mikrotik AP. We played with every firmware before finding only one firmware version of the Karlnet software is compatible. You must have 4.46 on the Karlnet client to connect to anything other than a Karlnet AP.

Hope I save some people time...

Connect Kn-50 / Kn-51 Turbocell with MT?

Connect Kn-50 / Kn-51 Turbocell with MT?

No, that's not quite what was being dicussed here. SEC stands for "Super Ethernet Converter", and essentially acts like a wireless ethernet bridge - similar to the Senao CB3 units work. It was only available as a software load (under separate license) for WP-II/IIe, KN-100/105, and RG-1000 hardware (perhaps more, but that's about as far as my KN hardware experience goes).

As far as I know, a KN-50 (I'm not familiar with the KN-51) does not have the ability to be configured as an infrastructure mode wireless bridge, and are Turbocell only devices. As such, there is no chance that you will be able to connect a device speaking Turbocell to anything but a Turbocell base.

You *may* be able to find a firmware that could be loaded into KN-50 (and pre KN-50) units that brings them back to being just a wireless ethernet bridge, but I'm quite sure it would require some effort to get working (likely JTAG programming). I have a few old Maplenet "I-19" infrastructure mode devices that were identical in hardware to the "I-19" Turbocell devices that were shipped, so I know it it possible. It just may not be practical


Brad

I find firmware that could be loaded into KN-50 units.
But then more moth, I not find this firmware.
The Maplenet "I-19", is not available.
Other idea?