Challenges and Issues
Interoperability

Most vendors want their customers to use their APs and NICs exclusively. They offer some degree of reduced capability if there is a need to mix and match different brands of APs and NICs.

In most cases the issues are largely cosmetic but they may result in increased calls to the help desk. Until the next generation of products is released, the system manager has a difficult decision to make, to either use a single-vendor system, with all the NICs and APs coming from that vendor, or to do without the more advanced management tools that single-vendor solutions provide.

As shown in Figure , in a closed network such as a corporate network, there are advantages to a single-vendor solution. Holding one vendor responsible for equipment performance eliminates the possibility of one vendor blaming the other vendor for equipment failures. In a more open environment, such as a college or university network or an airport terminal, a single-vendor solution may not be feasible. Suggestions can be offered about what equipment should be purchased, but the network administrator will probably need to support whatever the users bought.

Also remember that the Cisco bridges, like many other vendor bridges, are proprietary implementations of the 802.11 standard and therefore vendor interoperability cannot be attained.