Subject: [MOBILE-IP] Experiences with the Aironet/Wavelan drivers

From: Theo PAGTZIS <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 14:22:22 +0000

Howdy,

 Just to save the frustration from anyone, I have tried to test the Aironet
drivers in infra mode under FreeBSD3.2, only to discover that it cannot do
infra mode. The sync and association did ok with the BS but no packets could
be forwarded or sent. Although it worked fine in adhoc mode between nodes, I
could not get it to work on infra mode and route packets onto a fixed wire
net..

Unfortunately for the Aironet people the Wavelan card gains more momentum than
the Aironet interface, simply because there are no _fully functional drivers
for FreeBSD.

I have, however, to appreciate the effort of Bill Paul in actually producing
something that works for free. I also appreciate the statement in his README
that he did not have the chance to test with a BS, but that leaves loads of
space for the inexperienced to assume he is doing something wrong on his side,
not that the driver cannot do it.

Also to clarify something in my understanding about the wavelan drivers, the
(lately renovated) Columbia Cellular IP page states that the wavelan driver
can use the full 11 Mbps signalling rate. However within the driver
(http://www.freebsd.org/~wpaul/) it states explicitly that it can only reach 6
Mbps. On top of that I do not get Tput of more than 2.2 Mbps (TCP), 3.7 (UDP).
This looks more to me like a signalling b/width of 6 Mbps, not 11 Mbps.

Could it be that the page has added 'by mistake' (the old one did not have it)
the 11 Mbps figure. I have triple checked the driver and it is exactly the one
I am using now (same date). If this is the case could you please correct what
the page states since it mislead the reader about what the driver can do. If
not, I would appreciate some explanation.

I would love to be false in my statement but I think the driver instructions
should be amended to say that the aironet drivers will only work in adhoc mode.

If anyone did have different experiences with Aironet in infrastructure mode I
would appreciate any correction.

Regards

Theodore

-----------------------------------------

Theodore Pagtzis
Networked Mmedia & Mobile Systems Group
Dept of Computer Science
University College London

-----------------------------------------

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From: "Fred L. Templin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 07:10:51 -0800

Theo,

> This looks more to me like a signalling b/width of 6 Mbps, not 11 Mbps.

Lucent is now selling the WaveLAN Turbo GOLD card, which it claims
to have a maximum data rate of 11Mbps. I (and I'm sure many others)
purchased the WaveLAN Turbo BRONZE cards, which were advertised with
a max. data rate of 6Mbps. This was Lucent's early-to-market offering
of "turbo" cards with data rates beyond the IEEE 802.11 2mbps
specification, and I think they dumped it into the market early in
an attempt to catch up with Aironet, since Aironet was first to market
with an 11Mbps card.

Do you have the BRONZE or GOLD WaveLAN cards?

Fred
[email-masked]

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From: Francis Dupont <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 17:50:17 +0100

In your previous mail you wrote:

   infra mode.

=> I've tried an Aironet 4800 with WaveLAN IEEE (bronze turbo used at
2Mbits/s standard/common speed) with a WaveLAN Access Point II.
Adhoc modes are incompatible but infrastructure modes work together
in some cases: I have got some traffic between an Aironet and a WaveLAN
with the AP as a level 2 relay. A ping between the AP and an Aironet
always failed... then this infrastructure mode is just an adhoc one
with an extra box in the middle and no new facility (:-)!

Regards

[email-masked]

PS: I haven't yet tried new gold 11Mbits/s WaveLANs.

---

From: Theo PAGTZIS <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 18:43:45 +0000

Francis,

  thanks for your response. I though that it may be beneficial for the rest to
listen to that.

I have tried to get the Aironet interfaces to talk to a WavelanII interface
through a WavePointII AP (Lucent)...guess what I could ping from the WavelanII
interface the Aironet one but not vice versa. I also tried to telnet and ftp
and the login went ok...when I tried simple things like ls or cd then I did
not get any echos back leaving me to believe that the aironet default to a
different encapsulation method than the WavePoint can understand...by the way
the aironet driver should in theory be able to do 802.1H or RFC1042..but when
it came to verifying that through the Aironet BS the interface simply failed..

I did not want to get down to Bridge config since I was trying to get the
essentials up first..

Regards

Theo
[email-masked]