Is There Too Much Enthusiasm Over Wireless?

lukOh asks: "in the US, 802.11b/g (2.4Ghz) devices use an 83Mhz-wide frequency range; in-use channels spanning 22Mhz and centered on one of 11 5Mhz steps (badly named as "channels"). This means there should be no more that 3 networks in close proximity, 5 'channels' far from each other, to avoid harmful interference. Now, in the middle of the mixed area where I am, the number of usable WLANs (SNR>20dBm) has gone from 10 to an unworkable number of 20, in just one month. Has the community/the market overestimated the practicality of wireless networks? Are we generally relying too much on such a young, IMHO immature technology made on 'startups hope' and broken firmwares? How can this mess possibly be handled in a working environment, especially the moment your boss asks you to give him access to 'the wireless'?" "Access points can be easily detected, but the same isn't always true for every single client (or Bluetooth device) searching or using a network. Bluetooth itself employs the same 2.4Ghz range with 1Mhz-wide channels and much less power. To avoid interference a device jumps channel-to-channel, when the currently selected one is busy.

Most WLANs are managed by less-than-perfect SOHO access points. Connecting to an AP in such an environment is a gamble (even from 1ft away), especially when: WPA/WPA2 must be used; 802.11g stability is a dream; anywhere up to 7 networks are on the same 'channel' (1 and 11, being the most used, are standard on many devices); and now 'channel wars' are very common (i.e. 2 or more users concurrently hunting to set a free channel for their network, making the entire range unusable for hours)."

Comments

solution vs. problem?

[Gothmolly]

Wireless technology is great.... when you absolutely need it. Take the Conference Room scenario, whats wrong with a high port density switch under the table, accessible via a central panel? You end up with a 'spiderweb' of Cat5 cables, but with wireless, you still end up with all the power cables.
Yes, its useful to avoid snaking a cable from your desk to your bed in your dorm room, but is it a necessity?
Or have consumers bought into the "I need my data everywhere" ideal promised by the wireless people (Centrino! Get it, you'll be a hipster Blue Man Group Guy) and the constant bombardment of high speed wireless access ads from the phone company (Verizon)?
Back in my day, we had vt100 and 9600 baud, and we ran long serial cables or keyboard extension cables if you needed to be able to compute while wandering around your dorm room or a lab. How much real progress has been made with the WWW and 802.11 ?

One Solution

[TubeSteak]

One Solution that /nerds seem to find suitable is to login to whatever access points are chocking your channels and change their settings.

I know, its not exactly ethical, it is legally dubious, etc.

But, since most people rarely change the default admin password, you can't argue with the results from switching people off your channel, or reducing the broadcast power of their WAP.

Mostly though, the issue is that WAPs aren't 'intelligent.' They aren't spread-spectrum, they can't automaticall channel hop because they can't predict how good/bad your reception will be... There's a whole host of technical challenges to making them play nicely together.

Here's a super nerdy pdf with equations, pics representing signal intensity/overlap. If it doesn't answer your questions in a highly technical matter, I don't know what will.

Regulation inevitable

[ZachPruckowski]

I imagine we'll wind up with some sort of consolidation. We'll have something similar to phone companies with wireless. A regulated monopoly actually seems the most efficient here. I'd say the best example is radio stations. They are regulated so that they don't interfere with each other. We'll probably have wireless "markets" where different companies work. And at least here two or three could co-exist in some markets. And since competition among wireless providers means an area is more attractive to businesses, then gov't will maybe subsidize tower-building?

Er, no.

[squiggleslash]

1. People like wireless. They're doing networking now and do not want to be dragging cables around their homes.

2. 802.11a does not use the same frequencies as b and g, and has more spectrum. Unfortunately, the wireless manufacturers aren't promoting it, but even if the complaint above - that there are only three distinct bands and therefore you can't have more than three networks in one place - was actually true, it is an actual solution.

3. The complaint noted by the article is false. While it is true that there are only three distinct, non-overlapping, slices of spectrum allocated for 802.11b and g, you can have more than one network using the same slice of spectrum, at the cost of efficiency and speed. It is not the case that having a network on, say, bands 1-4 suddenly means that no other networks can use that spectrum, either theoretically or practically. The more networks run on those bands, the poorer performance will be, that's all. In reality, the chances of the performance decrease being so bad that it actually makes more of a difference than your DSL's bandwidth is relatively low, especially in the US where 1.5Mbps is considered a really good connection.

So, to recap. Wireless works. It could be more efficient, but as sold, currently, it's more than up to the task. The proof of the pudding is that people are actually going out there and setting up their own wireless networks, and keeping them. We're not facing any real problems yet.