[wsfii-discuss] Re: [wsfii-coord] Fwd: Shridhar Iyer's message

Fri Oct 13 15:57:11 UTC 2006

On Friday 13 October 2006 14:52, Ramon Roca wrote:
> First of all, sounds excellent to me any initiative oriented to solve
> some of the limitations of the wifi specs which penalized it's usage on
> medium distances.
>
> After a diagonal read, and I'm not the best in understanding some
> technical questions about RF communications dropped in the draft but to
> check my correct understanding of the overall and the impact that this
> could have at the real world:
>
> -Is that draft something which is intended to be applicable to current
> deployed RF equipments 802.11b/g?
> -Regardless of the response to the previous question, I assume that to
> make it successful, will require the support from the industry
> (manufacturers, drivers...), is that right? There is already any
> visibility on this?

From a cursory read, the target of the project is to remain compatible with 
existing 802.11b/g equipment because of low cost, changing only drivers 
installed on base stations and clients. However changes in MAC & PHY layers 
may mean only certain types of cards (that expose ability to change required 
details of such layers) would work. Some cards will not.

I'm initially baffled as to why it is named 'Rural Extension', and similarly 
need to read it in more detail to understand exactly why these layers 'need' 
to be re-engineered.

On a positive note, the paper contains some good advice on base station 
deployment together with good rationale (3 transmitters / tower and back 
progation interference).

shine,

.vortex