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Stanford Team Tries For Better Wi-Fi In Crowded Buildings
alphadogg writes "Having lots of Wi-Fi networks packed into a condominium or apartment building can hurt everyone's wireless performance, but Stanford University researchers say they've found a way to turn crowding into an advantage. In a dorm on the Stanford campus, they're building a single, dense Wi-Fi infrastructure that each resident can use and manage like their own private network. That means the shared system, called BeHop, can be centrally managed for maximum performance and efficiency while users still assign their own SSIDs, passwords and other settings. The Stanford project is making this happen with inexpensive, consumer-grade access points and SDN (software-defined networking)."
also what about stuff like file shearing and other stuff that the cops only look at the IP and not that real end user.
Doesn't this just mean that all of the networks have to be put under the control of a singe entity, and then redistributed amont those living in the condo?
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A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
All of the WiFi routers (access points) would be under central control for things like assigning them to specific channels.
But the "owner" (student) of the router will get to set things like SSID and QoS and such.
VPN called. It wants its acronym back.
Better known as 318230.
Let's say you live in an apartment building and you can see 16 different SSIDs. Is it slow because there's a lot of data in total being transferred, or does CSMA just collapse (gridlock) so hardly anybody is getting anything? It seems like back when ethernet was actually used as a shared medium (hubs) throughput was good up to about 85% and then it would just die.
It's a shame the kids these days can't be bothered to plug a computer into the Ethernet drops that were installed in their rooms 20 years ago.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
"Software Defined Networking", as Stanford uses the term, means a centrally controlled virtual circuit switching system. Every time someone makes a "call" (a new IP/port IP/port tuple), the first packet is routed to Master Control, which decides if they get to make the call, logs the call, decides whether the call gets wiretapped or filtered, and chooses the priority given to the call. All the routers involved are then issued instructions from Master Control on how to route that call.
(Yeah, they don't use the term "call". But that's what it is, really.) Goodbye, "net neutrality". Goodbye, flat rate billing. Goodbye, distributed control. This puts everything you do on the Internet under central control and makes it billable.
Who will "centrally manage" it in the wild? Seems the channel selection needs extension...
Isn't there some way they could create pCells around each device, so nobody would interfere with anyone else?
The next question is, could that be done in each individual's router(s), or does it require the collective network described here?
(T>t && O(n)--) == sqrt(666)
I read about this concept some time ago.
Check out https://github.com/lalithsuresh/odin
Love how this article gives so much detail. It was easy to form an opinion on the usefulness of... this... thing... whatever it is.
If a train station is a place where a train stops, what's a workstation?
Ethanol-fueled, is that you? :)
Beamforming in the wifi world has existed on Atheros chipsets (which nearly everyone uses) since 802.11n.
It has to do with controlling the signal's quality to a specific client - it doesnt allow multiple clients to occupy the airwaves at the same time. Wifi is and remains a shared medium.
I think this "virtualization" craze is all mildly amusing. What if users insisted on baking needed features from the start into their platforms instead of tolerating layering of hacks upon hacks?
Computers within computers, Q-in-Q-in-Q ad absurdity. It all adds up in unnecessary management and product costs.
Legions of folk talking "secure networks" operating under assumption cyberspace castle defense has or will ever become a sane strategy.
What if the operating system out of the box guaranteed an isolated execution environment for applications allowing suspension, migration and fault tolerance for the application and environmental dependencies? Would people still insist on stringing up virtual computers within computers all over the place?
What if migration of applications also updated naming resources and provided for seamless network handover? Would people still insist on stringing up tunnels and virtual lans?
Things like VPNs/tunnels are convenient I get it I get why people use them today yet if you get rid of the constraints to underlying technology which make them useful (Lack of address space, lack of end to end security, lack of mobility) then VPNs become rather pointless.
In this specific case the stated problem was availability of spectrum. The answer is 802. things with "n" and "ac" after them. Screwing with very limited real channel space in ISM band is pointless compared with modern beam forming and seamless roaming is free on Ethernet networks.
I suspect the real motivation has more to do with centralized control and monitoring of the network by the University. The fact that this is at all possible or useful is itself due to failure to universally deploy proper end to end security.