Broadcom Accuses Atheros Of WiFi Pollution

eggboard writes "We just posted a story at PC World about 802.11g chipmaker Broadcom's claims that the high-speed 108 Mbps mode available in rival Atheros's AR5004G chipset disrupts all nearby Wi-Fi networks. The Turbo mode, part of Atheros Super G, uses two Wi-Fi channels (5 and 6) to double bandwidth, but Broadcom says this can lead to 'an enormous degradation in the speed of nearby 802.11b and 802.11g networks.'. D-Link and NetGear are shipping Super G-based devices. If Broadcom is right, Atheros gear would pollute neighbors' networks. If wrong, they're putting out a pretty heavy marketing smokescreen just before Comdex - where Broadcom says they'll be demonstrating the Atheros problem."

Comments

Two words...

[EmagGeek]

So what!? It's unlicensed spectrum and they can do with it what they wish as long as they don't violate any FCC rules, which Atheros is clearly not.

Part 15 devices must accept any interference, including that which may cause undesired operation.

I'd personally like to see point-to-point 2.4GHz hardware that uses the ENTIRE spectrum for extremely high bandwidth applications... that'd be very cool

Re:Two words...

[squiggleslash]

So what!? It's unlicensed spectrum and they can do with it what they wish as long as they don't violate any FCC rules, which Atheros is clearly not.

Wait, because they can you believe they should?

Part of living in a harmonious society involves cooperating with others to ensure what you're doing does not impair the freedom of others. This, at a very high level, is one of the reasons why we go around inventing protocols - clear, agreed-upon, protocols ensure that everyone can benefit from a technology rather than whoever has the most costly design.

There's a difference between what's legal, and what's right. Damaging the ability of others to use an established technology for minor bandwidth gains on your part is a Tech-world example of what may be legal but what most certainly isn't a decent thing to do.

Re:Atheros Linux driver

[kju]

Your post ist not Insighful, but Clueless. So you say almost everything is GPL'ed. Yes, exactly, with the totally small exception of the COMPLETE hardware abstraction layer. Yes, everything which deals with the hardware is binary only and NOT gpl'd. The rest of the driver is worthless, the heart and core would be the HAL. So this driver is better than nothing but not really acceptable.

Atheros is as bad as Broadcom is. Dump both and buy Intersil PrismGT. Not even did they support a linux driver effort, they even sponsored the developent!

Re:The "not my problem" problem

[Jameth]

To the contrary: People have every right to complain, but no right to legal action.

This is a very distinctive difference, because bad press and legal action are about equally harmful in the US.

Of course, the bad press might do nothing. However, it might do something.

Obvious solution

[Master_Wu]

Since probably at least half of your twenty neighbors plug the things in and go, just use their wi-fi points and vpn into your network if you need to - no bandwidth loss for you (it's all bonus, and free) and you can switch to the next guys nextwork if your current one gets slow.

Maybe mesh networks would help

[bonds]

Right now all of our wireless devices work on the "shout as loud as you can so people can hear you principle." When we get too many devices trying to work in the same space, it's like putting a bunch of people on opposite sides of the room and asking them to shout across the room to speak to each other. This works fine when one or two conversations are going, but it doesn't scale very well.

Mesh networks offer the possability of having each node pass a note to the node closest to them in the direction of the node they are trying to reach. They only have to speak loud enough for that closest node to hear, making meshes a lot more scalable. Like passing notes in high school rather than shouting across the room and getting the teacher pissed off at you. :) I suspect that as wireless devices become more popular we'll need something like mesh networks to make more efficient use of the spectrum. In fact, in a manner similar to Bittorrent and Freenet, the more people that participate in a mesh network, the more resiliant and speedy the whole network is.

sb