Sluggish WiFi Connections Hurt Everyone

MindNumbingOblivion writes "Wireless technology has revolutionized access to local area networks when one can't always be close to an ethernet jack. But a recent research paper from the French Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique tells how one slow user accessing a hot point can hurt the whole group. Apparently the very nature of CSMA/CD guarantees such anomalies. Here's the story, and here's the release from CNRS (in French)."

Comments

Re:There are solutions

[peripatetic_bum]

I think this is a neat way to look at the situation, Im sure "they" are working on outsourcing you job to india.

What kind of network has to be hands on to ensure that it cant be moved overseas?

I wouldn't worry about it too much...

[canning]

They cited an example where several users, who are enjoying a fast 11Mbps connection because they're close to the hot spot, see their performance dramatically drop when a single user -- perhaps because he is further from the access point -- connects at a sluggish 1Mbps. In that case, the French experts said, all are punished for the sins of the one: those users once connected at 11Mbps will see their speeds dragged down to 1Mbps.

and shortly after the perpetrator was revealed he quickly surrendered.