Point-To-Multipoint Topology - 3Com WL-311 User Manual

1 Introduction

Point-to-Multipoint Topology

2
3Com Wireless Building-to-Building Bridges can be used for communicating among
multiple (two or more) bridges, with each bridge connected to a particular building's wired
LAN. The next figure shows a bridging network in which four 3Com Building-to-Building
Bridges are used to provide wireless connectivity among four buildings. This topology
typically uses omnidirectional antennas for communication between bridges if bridging is
desired among all buildings in the bridging network without restriction (see "Antennas
and Cables" on page 3).
In this configuration, the wireless bridges make all four wired LANs appear to be
connected by the same Ethernet cable. Using wireless bridges in this manner provides a
cost-effective way to wirelessly link multiple wired LAN networks by eliminating the need
to install cables between buildings.
An alternative point-to-multipoint configuration is shown in the following figure.
In this example, the first building's bridge is using an omnidirectional antenna while the
other three buildings have bridges using directional antennas. In this case, the three
bridges with directional antennas can communicate only with the bridge using the omni-
direction antenna; they cannot communicate directly with each other. The bridge using
the omnidirectional antenna can communicate with the other three bridges.
CAUTION: This alternative, mixed-antenna point-to-multipoint topology, can
possibly result in lower performance than a point-to-multipoint configuration that
uses only omnidirectional antennas.