Here is what we are doing regarding wireless with pretty good results so far. Our process is a municipal water treatment facility. Our remote workstations are used by the operators when they have to monitor a process like a filter wash, and by the maintenance techs so they can see the readings and change settings as necessary. This saves the maintenance techs a lot of confusion and time by not having to call the operator over a trunk radio or land line to relay readings or commands. We just completed upgrading our one wireless desktop workstation to two Panasonic toughbook laptops PIIIs, Windows 2000 Professional, Exceed v7.1. We're using Aironet remote access points and PCMCIA cards via our corporate intranet. I was told Aironet is owned by Cisco. Hosts are E boxes because they are already set up for corporate intranet access. I plan to use our D boxes so the operators can see DM/FV usage on their workstation without having to go over to the "process engineer" E box. I want to be sure the plant operator can see how many remote workstations are on line and could potentially control the process. The new wireless equipment works through fairly thick walls, increasing our coverage area dramatically, with greater reliablity of signal strength and connectivity. We are testing to be sure our sensitive analyzers and motor controllers aren't affected by RF generated in wireless equipment. We've seen low power hand held radios cause equipment upsets, so we tread carefully. This is a four service utility (water, wastewater, gas & electric) serving a population of about 440,000. Our corporate intranet uses Cisco equipment, so this Aironet equipment ties in well when addressing security and connectivity issues using wireless across our corporate operating environment. There is a concern that someone could park close to a plant complex and "hack" or maybe even jam our system over wireless networks. There are ways to mitigate that risk. Wally Magda Instrumentation & Control Specialist Colorado Springs Utilities McCullough Treatment Plant 660 W. Monument Creek Rd USAF Academy, CO 80840 719-668-9502 wmagda@xxxxxxx _______________________________________________________________________ This mailing list is neither sponsored nor endorsed by Invensys Process Systems (formerly The Foxboro Company). Use the info you obtain here at your own risks. Read http://www.thecassandraproject.org/disclaimer.html foxboro mailing list: //www.freelists.org/list/foxboro to subscribe: mailto:foxboro-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=join to unsubscribe: mailto:foxboro-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=leave