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In the world of networking, Compex is a relative unknown. In spite of having been around since 1987, this company has yet to find the spotlight that other sideline players have captured. And it’s not because of a lack of products – indeed, Compex has a line-up as complete as most of the other mainstream players. Today, we’re taking a look at their WavePort Series of 11Mbps wireless LAN products.

Wireless Refresher

The WavePort series is based on the 802.11b standard, same as the majority of other current Wireless products and same as the SOHOWare NetBlaster II series we reviewed previously. Like all 802.11b products, the WavePort is designed to operate at 11Mbps at optimal signal strengths – as the signal degrades the cards will negotiate 5.5Mbps, 2Mbps and finally 1Mbps transmissions. For North America, the 802.11b standard has 11 operating channels (Europe uses 13 channels, and Japan uses 14) in the 2.4Ghz range.

Although for the most part wireless networking will make use of Access points, you don’t necessarily need one in order to operate a wireless network. Wireless products are designed to be able to communicate directly with one another in what is commonly called “ad-hoc” mode. However, an Access Point will act like a repeater station and a bridge to existing wired Ethernet networks.

The WL11-U PCMCIA Wireless Card

COMPEX did not send us their PCI adapter for review, so our setup only made use of the WL11-U PCMCIA card. This 3.3V card fits into a PCMCIA type II slot and includes a very small LED to indicate network connectivity and activity.

Installation of the PCMCIA card is not as easy as we would have expected. We had to reboot our system several times in order to finally get the card properly installed. The first few tries at installation incorrectly identified the card and failed to install the proper drivers. This is no a fault of the instructions, which are clear and well laid out, but rather maybe some quirks in the card’s underlying chipset (which initially identified itself as something other then the COMPEX card).

Once everything was installed, the software drivers allow advanced and thorough configuration of the card. I was surprised to see that the drivers measured both Signal Strength and Signal Quality, although how the two differ from one another completely eludes me.

To test for compatibility, we set up a simple ad-hoc network using the COMPEX card and a card from SOHOware. The two worked together flawlessly. We threw in the COMPEX Access Point and all of the systems were working together quite seamlessly.

An interesting aspect of the software package that COMPEX includes is their “Softbridge” utility. In a system installed with both a regular wired AND a wireless LAN card, this utility allows you to create a software based bridge between your wireless network and your wired network. This simple utility is a HUGE boon for users who want basic bridging between their new wireless network and their existing wired networks without having to pay for an Access Point.