Agere WLAN router has 16km range

Designed for point-to-point and point-to-multipoint 802.11b-based networks, the OR-500 remote outdoor router from Agere Systems features an embedded 2.4GHz radio with a range of up to 16km.

A part of the company's Orinoco line of products, the OR-500 is based on the company's AP-500 platform and offers 11Mbps bandwidth, 128-bit encryption, and extends support for routing and power over Ethernet.

The single-slot device is positioned for enterprise and wireless ISPs that do not require the extea radio capacity of the dual-slot OR-1000 model.

Agere systems also launched the OR 4 outdoor router software for use in WLAN systems, and features spanning-tree support, RADIUS-based authentication, and RADIUS-based bandwidth throttling.

Spanning tree support improves network reliability by automatically creating alternate links should one segment fail. RADIUS-based authentication enables clients to access the network only after being authenticated by a central RADIUS server.

RADIUS-based bandwidth throttling can define and control how much bandwidth is delivered to each end node.

In addition, the software is also claimed to double the number of supported remote devices for each central outdoor router from 64 to 128.

OR 4 is available immediately and can be downloaded for free by existing users from www.orinocowireless.com.