The ZyAir G-560 is a nifty little Access Point. One of its very cool features is WDS (Wireless Distribution System) which means you can use a couple of these Wireless Access Points to simply expand the range of your WiFi area.
Vitals Would I buy another one? - Likely
Do I like it? - Its OK
Does it look good? - Yup
Do I think its reliable? - Apart from one faulty unit
Do I think its worth the money? - Yes
Is it easy to understand and set up? - No, unless you are a WiFi expert.
Where would I use it? - Home Users / SOHO
Pros - Small, cheap
Cons - Need a geek to configure it for you
In the BoxG-560 Access Point
Power Adapter
CD with manual
Booklet
First ImpressionsThe G-560 is your basic access point with a few extra perks. It has a rotating antenna, RJ-45, power socket and reset button at the back. It is nice and small - so easy to hide away somewhere. The web interface is also very easy to use, although, when it came to configuring WDS it became a bit confusing...
Configuring the Access Point
One of our clients required a configuration of 3 Access Points on each floor of the building to provide internet access to their clients. On the second floor they have a broadband connection with a ZyXel 660H Router.
Setting up WDS turned out to be a pain. Its not as much the configuration of the device, but more the difficulty in understanding what should be set to what. My calls to ZyXel turned out to be a bit frustrating as it caused more confusion that help. The main issue was a little note at the bottom of the Wireless Configuration page which reads: "For WDS make sure you configure each Access Point with a different IP Address and SSID, but with the same channel" - or something to that effect. Speaking to ZyXel customer care, I was told to configure the same SSID, but different channels. Turns out both were wrong, as I eventually found out the SSID should be the same on each AP as well as the channel.
After sorting out all this confusion, configuring these APs are very straightforward and easy. Once you log in for the first time, you will be prompted to change the default password. From there you can configure the System settings - Device name, IP address, time & date.
Under the wireless settings section, you have the normal security section, Mac filter and OTIST section. You also have some more advanced settings to configure the behaviour of the access point. This is also where you configure WDS.
Interestingly, there is no "WDS" option anywhere. Once you dig through the manual, you will find that WDS = setting the Operation mode to "Access Point + Bridge". So, if you have just the one access point, you would leave the switch on the default "Access Point". If you want use WDS, you should select Access Point + Bridge.
Configuring WDSIn our case where we needed to run WDS over the Access Points, I did the following in the configuration. Apart from the IP addresses and Device (not SSID) names, everything is configured the same on each Access Point - same security settings, same channel, same ticks on advanced options etc. With Operation Mode set to Access Point + Bridge, you will see 4 fields to enter MAC addresses. You need to enter the MAC addresses of the other 2 Access Points. For some reason, if do this on all three APs, it causes a network loop. This is basically network traffic that is sent from the one AP to the others, and they then pass that on to each other and so it snowballs and flood your network. If you are not sure if this is happening, look at the WLAN and ETHN lights - if they flash like mad when no one is really using the network, then you have a loop. To overcome this, I configured the 2nd floor AP with the MAC addresses of the 1st & 3rd floor APs. On the 1st and 3rd Floor APs, I only configured the MAC address of the 2nd floor AP. This way 3rd floor talks to 2nd floor, 1st floor talks to second floor, and 2nd can talk to both. So, no matter where you are in the building, you can get internet access.
OverviewOnce these APs are configured, they seem to be OK. We had a problem where the WiFi service would degrade so much that you can connect to the WiFi, but never get an IP from the router. That turned out to be because of a bug / misconfiguration of the Bandwidth Management (QoS) option on the router. Once that was sorted out (by disabling QoS), the AP on the 3rd floor died and had to be replaced.
Overall these APs are nifty, although the experience was painful enough to be looking at alternative models for next time. The ZyXel ZyAir G-560 Product Page
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Disappointing
Written by carel on 2006-07-25 15:27:19
After writing this article, my opinion of ZyXel has changed. I am very disappointed in the quality of their products. We've had a second WiFi unit fail (Thats a 40% fail rate over the 5 we've bought so far). The software is buggy and behaves strangely, etc. In short I think ZyXel need to sort out their problems first in terms of quality and reliability before I would recommend them.
Carel |
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