Subject: More on wireless networks

From: Graham Klyne <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1999 21:33:42 +0100

I have been investigating further, and offer the following tentative
observations:

CAVEAT:  I'm not expert in this area, just interested.
(I'm sure the experts here will correct my errors and misconceptions :-)

There are at least four different possible (and incompatible) systems in
circulation using the 2.4GHz frequency band (there are actually many more,
but I'm focusing on four that seem to be of current or historical interest):

- Roamabout/Wavelan DS
Historically used for IETF meetings, I think.

- Roamabout/Wavelan FH
Is this one of the options provided for Oslo? I thought so, but on
re-reading the options posted I'm not so sure.  (Can someone confirm/deny
this?)

- 802.11 DS
The 802.11 DS variant;  this seems to be problematic to deploy, being less
scalable that FH. Some vendors claim that aggressive FH gives better
performance than the basic DS.  There is apparently a variant of this that
runs at about 10MBps, but not yet ratified as an IEEE standard.

- 802.11 FH
This seems to be the popular option (with vendors) at the moment for
performance in the 1-3Mbps range.  Different products claim different
bandwidth capabilities.

For a comparative test of 802.11 interoperability, see
<http://www.networkcomputing.com/1006/1006r2side1.html>

What I'd like to know right now is this:
will a DEC RoamAbout FH card work in the Oslo environment?

#g