jefforr's Full Review: Proxim Symphony Cordless (4100-05) Network Adapte...
The Symphony Cordless ISA Card was part of Proxim's first generation of wireless home networking products. Suffice it to say that this particular version is no longer made (they had three generations of Symphony products), but the products work and have worked like a champ for me for several years. You can still buy this ISA Card for under $50.
Two problems in creating our wireless network needed to be solved -- 1) when we went wireless I really wanted to have the printer not be tied down to one of the computers that we used all the time, which might be turned off therefore rendering the printer unreachable, and 2) I wanted to have a place where I could store commonly accessed files that multiple computers needed to access.
The solution was to use our old Pentium 90 and add the Symphony Cordless ISA Card to it. This machine was a challenge for networking because it ran only Windows 95 and it only had ISA slots. Adding a wired Ethernet network card would not have been too challenging, but it defeated the purpose of being wireless. The Symphony Cordless ISA Card fit the bill -- Windows 95 drivers and in an ISA expansion slot. The printer is attached to this computer and we use its hard drive exclusively for file storage (our music CDs, budgets, etc.
Installation was very straight-forward, though if you're not into opening your computer and dealing with the expansion slots, then you might opt for more recent wireless products that use a USB interface, which can be plugged in externally. The antenna screws to the back of the card and has a six foot cord making placement on the desk, bookshelf, or top of monitor easy.
The software installation was a breeze -- ten mouse clicks of 'Next' in the included Composer wizard and I was going (I did have to reboot Windows, which actually took longer on this particular machine than the installation software did). During the installation process, you are asked if this machine is connecting to one of the Symphony Cordless gateways (Cordless Modem or Cordless Ethernet Bridge) to share your Internet connection or if you're just connecting to other machines. Also, you're asked to specify the network password (which all the machines are assigned to keep your network separate from your neighbors), if you wants to share files or printers on this machine (which was my purpose from the start), and given the opportunity to register the product with Proxim.
During regular operation, the Maestro utility icon resides in the Windows system tray (lower right corner of screen) and shows the current status using an icon shape and color (for example, it turns red if the wireless card loses contact with the host). By opening the utility, you get a list of other machines on your network, can check the signal strength, and change settings.
For my configuration, I also purchased PC Cards for our laptops and a Cordless Gateway, which is attached to the cable modem. This allows my laptop with a PC Card to share a single Internet connection, print to the computer with the ISA Card, and share files on that machine at will.
The Symphony Cordless products operate in the 2.4 GHz (gigahertz) frequency band. This means that it will not interfere with your 900 MHz cordless phone or other devices that operate outside of 2.4 GHz. Other devices today that operate using 2.4 GHz include several cordless phones and your microwave oven. The good news is that the Symphony Cordless products are very good at dealing with interference and I have not witnessed any problems when the microwave is running. In later generations of products, Proxim and other companies worked together on a wireless language (called HomeRF) that used many of the ideas from Symphony Cordless as the basis for creating a home wireless standard.
Range is another consideration that should be made when choosing a wireless network product. This is one of those areas where "your mileage may vary", but I've found that the Symphony Cordless products will go further in and around my home than any 802.11b (Wi-Fi) card. The toughest use in our home is my son's laptop to the computer with the Symphony Cordless ISA Card for printing -- the signal is traveling through two floors and through about 4 walls.
As for speed, the Symphony Cordless ISA Card is rated for 1.6 Mbps (megabits per second). This is the speed at which two devices talk to each other over the air and is not how fast you'll actually download from the Internet. Expect about 600-800Kbps (kilobits per second) of actual throughput. In our house, we have three computers wireless via Symphony and two wired. From our cable modem, we do not see much difference in web surfing or downloading email between the wireless and wired computers. The only time we see a difference is in moving large files from one machine to another locally (of course, I'm comparing a 1.6 Mbps wireless connection to a 100Mbps Ethernet one, so I hope there is a difference).
Note that the Symphony Cordless ISA Card will only work with other Symphony Cordless and Symphony-HRF products. It does not use the 802.11 standards (often collectively called Wi-Fi), but since this was for my home and only my home that was not a concern. I recommend that if you buy this product that you visit Proxim's website to download the latest drivers for your operating system.
In all, the Symphony solution was my first wireless network at home and even though I've since installed over a thousand wireless cards and the technology has changed for wireless networking over the last four years, the Symphony Cordless products have worked reliably. Money well spent!
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