Product Reviews

If you've heard of Elsa at all, chances are you'll know the German company for its graphics cards. However, Elsa also has a wide range of wireless networking and ISDN products. I looked at an AirLancer MC-11 PC Card wireless adapter and an Elsa LANCOM Wireless IL-11 access point with built-in ISDN.

Features

Installing the PC Card on the Toshiba notebook was easy: simply plug it into a spare PC Card slot, and provide the driver CD when required. You'll need to reboot on first installation, but after that the PC Card can be pulled in and out without rebooting. Setting up the IL-11 is a lot less straightforward, mostly because of the built-in

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ISDN. An administration utility searches the wireless or wired network for Elsa devices, then offers a wizard to set up any it finds. You'll still need a reasonable knowledge of TCP/IP to get it up and running. Getting the ISDN routing working is even more complex, because the IL-11 offers a massive range of features - well beyond the needs of most home users. If you're just using two PC Cards, however, it's as easy to set up as any other network card.

Performance

Both use the 802.11b standard, potentially offering 11Mbit/s bandwidth. Performance for the Elsa AirLancer wasn't as fast as that of Buffalo's AirStation. However, I wasn't copying peer-to-peer between two wireless workstations. Instead, I had the AirLancer PC Card in the Toshiba notebook, and was using the IL-11 access point as a bridge to a wired network with the Athlon 850 PC on it. The extra layer of conversion may be to blame for the lower speed.

Overall

Nevertheless, performance isn't what lets the AirLancer down. It's price. The PC Card NICs are almost £30 more expensive than Buffalo's. If you do need to hook up your wireless network to ISDN, the Elsa is the only choice. Otherwise, Buffalo's AirStation range is much more cost-effective.