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Re: wifi for 600, alex

  • From: Marshall Eubanks
  • Date: Thu Feb 15 09:54:33 2007


The IETF experience is that enough people run 802.11a to take significant load off of the {b,g} network.


Marshall

On Feb 15, 2007, at 9:45 AM, Pickett, McLean (OCTO) wrote:



Works well if everyone has 802.11a/g card. That's been my biggest concern
with deploying 802.11a recently.


McLean

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Todd
Vierling
Sent: Thursday, February 15, 2007 12:02 AM
To: Suresh Ramasubramanian
Cc: Marshall Eubanks; Carl Karsten; NANOG
Subject: Re: wifi for 600, alex



On 2/14/07, Suresh Ramasubramanian <[email protected]> wrote:
4. Isolate the wireless network from the main conference network /
backbone so that critical stuff (streaming content for workshop and
other presentations, the rego system etc) gets bandwidth allocated to
it just fine, without it being eaten up by hungry laptops.

The oft-overlooked 802.11a is great for this purpose when there isn't enough wiring infrastructure to drop a RJ45 in all the necessary conference rooms. Whereas 802.11[bgn] has only three (or four, depending on who you quote) mostly non-overlapping frequencies -- even less when MIMO is in use -- 802.11a has eight *completely* non-overlapping standard channels. In nice open conference hall space with at most two walls in the way, the rated shorter range of 11a is actually not so noticeable because of the lack of radio noise.

2.4GHz is soooooo last decade. ;)

(The 802.11[bgn] density where I live is so high that I resorted to
installing 802.11a throughout my house.  Zero contention for airwaves
and I can actually get close to rated speed for data transmission.)

--
-- Todd Vierling <[email protected]> <[email protected]> <[email protected]>