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Faster Wireless Multimedia Streaming

Posted by michael on from the wireless-everything dept.

prostoalex writes "The Wi-Fi Alliance approved Wi-Fi Multimedia (WMM) technology that allows packet prioritisation to the multimedia data streamed wireless LANs. Broadcom already announced that one of their access points and one reference design are WMM-certified. Other news outlets report that WMM will accelerate Wi-Fi adoption in consumer electronics and mobile devices."

17 of 46 comments (clear)

  1. This will work great with multicasting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If anyone ever actually supports that.

  2. QoS? by jeffs72 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Isn't this just Quality of Service? Surely any decent wireless router manufacturer that doesn't already support QoS could add it with a firmware update. Or is this another scheme to get me to buy new wireless routing gear (first b, then g, now WMM)?

    What am I missing here

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    1. Re:QoS? by ElForesto · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That was my first thought. It seems that companies these days are really eager to make up some new certification that's really a technology that's been around for years.

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  3. The RIAA? by tajmorton · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I wonder what the RIAA/MPAA will have to say about this...will they require that the streams be encrypted?

    It'll be interesting to see how this plays out with those lawyers.

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    1. Re:The RIAA? by jared_hanson · · Score: 4, Funny

      They are going to impose restrictions on the laws of physics, especially those concerning propagation of radio waves, that requires said waves to cease to exist after seven days.

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  4. WiFi everything! by chrispyman · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This really doesn't sound like anything that revolutionary, just another hack to speed up "multimedia" data on a WLAN. But the real interesting part is how they expect to put WiFi in, well, everything. Now I certainly have nothing against WiFi'ing everything, but I do worry that with so much WiFi, you could have some interfearence issues (much like UTexas had), and then you still have the problem that you loose pretty much all data security. Perhaps when they figure out a way to have WiFi APs automatically select the least used channel to reduce interfearance and they add in a good, strong, automatic, and mandatory encryption then perhaps we'll be seeing less ethernet ports and more WiFi antennas in products.

  5. Apple and Slim on the ball by for_usenet · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is excellent - with the Slim MP3 player and Apple's Airport express base station starting this trend off, hopefully, we will get more devices with more cool features, and all (hopefully) playing nice with each other.

    I wonder if the ad for the job posting at Apple that appeared here a few weeks ago will be impacted by this at all. In any case, I am looking forward to integrating my A/V system into my computer, and get rid of a ton of wires, all in one swell foop !! ;-)

  6. Good point by jeffs72 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I didn't even think about that, but I imagine that a G type device can put out a pretty good sound broadcast, with prioritization (QoS in disguise) going on. Now compound that with phones or pdas that can read that signal and have a player that knows what to do with it. Now combine that setup that works for a few hundred feet with any of the plethora of ways to boost wifi signal strenght and you've got independent radio stations that can reach a real quantity of subscribers. For free (except equipment, since I believe it's been established that internet radio is license free as long as the broadcaster owns the original song he/she's playing).

    The RIAA is gonna shit

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  7. I'd be interested by Bill_Royle · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'd be interested as to how they define which packets are multimedia, and which are data/text-based. It seems to me that there would have to be some sort of identifier on each packet in order to set a priority. As such, it sounds like it could easily be streamlined into a DRM scheme, so I wouldn't think that the RIAA/MPAA would mind at all.

    Of course, I'm not a packet expert, so this ability may be available already...

  8. ...and what could possibly go wrong? by corvair2k1 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Doesn't this lead to a new type of DOS attack? Granted, this wouldn't be used in a corporate setting, but it could seriously much around with the enduser experience if all sorts of high priority packets shut off other traffic.

  9. Coming soon, to a hot spot near you! by stratjakt · · Score: 2, Funny

    Goatse, The Motion Picture

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  10. Why should I care about Broadcom? by Skraut · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Broadcom already announced that one of their access points and one reference design are WMM-certified.
    Wake me up when they announce support for Linux for any of their wireless cards.
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  11. Speed is nice, but ... by drsmack1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    My customers want RANGE. I need to be able to cover a large home with one AP (placed where ever it is most convenient) and cover the house and yard.

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    1. Re:Speed is nice, but ... by Gaewyn+L+Knight · · Score: 4, Informative

      Pick up a Senao (Engenius Tech) access point... Not only are they 200mw they also have an incredibly low receive threshold.

      Place it near outside wall on the middle floor of the house and voila! Unless the house is heavy brick with rebar you'll get at least some leakage into the yard. If you need more in a certain spot place the AP with a view out the window in that direction.

      Or heck... for 50$ a piece you can get 2 APs and place one on each end of the house (vary floors for better floor coverage)

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  12. Taking Back the Airwaves? by EvanKai · · Score: 4, Interesting

    With all the discussion about city wide WiFi networks in Grand Haven, Philadelphia, Redmond, etc and disputes over WiFi right of ways at universities and stadiums, it is becoming more obvious that WiFi will be eroding the markets of tradition broadcast technologies... radio, television, cellular.

    When I was at SXSW last year, not only could you listen to the authorized SXSW iTunes playlists, but hundreds of Mac using convention goers were sharing their playlists via Rendezvous.

    With standards like WMM and applications like Skype, have we finally taken the airwaves back?

  13. its not QoS as you know it by rasz · · Score: 2, Interesting

    at least not 802.1p , It works on the radio level (PHY)
    http://w3.antd.nist.gov/wctg/manet/docs/VTC2003_Ba ckoff.pdf
    all you have to do is make sure that multimedia sending device gets their backoff timers boundaries set lower than the rest of the wifi boxes on the channel. That way they will be the first to occupy the band if in need. Thats how Cisco handles QoS in VOIP WiFi phones of theirs. Its 100% compatible with the receiver, only transceiver has to support it.
    google has it all

    As some of you guessed before this whole certification is pointless :) You can do the same in Linux today. Hell, thats how 802.11 DOS works (small traffic occupy whole band, just send first and pretend you send something big)

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  14. Updated WRT54G broadcom wl driver by docstrange · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If you update your linksys wrt54g to the latest firmware, and use one of the many methods out there to access the wirless driver that runs on an embedded linux os you can execute /usr/sbin/wl

    one of the supported commands returned is
    wme Set WME (Wireless Multimedia Extensions) mode (0=off, 1=on)

    I'm guessing that the included broadcom radio is the one that supports this.

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