Subject: Wireless @ D.C. IETF

From: Doug Moeller <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Oct 1999 16:40:35 -0400

Hello all,

  As you may or may not know Nortel Networks is hosting the upcoming IETF in
  D.C.  As part of that we are doing the terminal room and all the wireless
  Access for the conference.  We'll be using the BayStack 650 Wireless
  devices (IEEE 802.11 FH),  but unfortunately we only have drivers for MS 
Windows(95,98,NT,
  2K) machines.  So,  in an effort to make up for our lameness and to provide
  support for other platform's I'd like to make an offer.

I'll give you a free Wireless Access Point(10BaseT to wireless ethernet bridge)
and a PCMCIA Wireless NIC if you can provide a functioning driver by 8:00am 
on Sunday Nov. 6th for one of the following platforms

MacOS (PowerPC, Open Transport 1.0 or higher)
Linux (Red Hat 6.0)
FreeBSD (3.X)

  We use pretty standard components in our NIC's and driver's for other
  vendor's NIC's that use the same components have been developed
  independently, so it shouldn't be too impossible of a task.

  I have a limited number of AP's and NIC's that I can ship out now for
  development work.  Since we have a limited number and I may not be able to
  send one to everyone who replies,  please send me a short blurb on why you
  think you might be successful.  I plan to send out the boxes no later 
then this
  Friday Oct 15th, so please get back to me before then.

You must be attending the meeting to take advantage of this. (So, we can 
hassle you for support if necessary)

The AP that I send you for development must be brought to IETF so that we 
may use it there.  If you are successful in developing a driver you'll get 
it back after the conference.

The driver developed must be freely available to anyone who wants 
it.  Nortel does not intend to own the driver but may incorporate it in 
future products or make it available to users.

Please respond to me directly.  Thanks.

                                                          -Doug

P.S.  We'll also be selling the NIC's for $99.00 to attendees.  This is 
special deal for IETF only and is way below our cost  You can sign up for 
one at http://standards.nortelnetworks.com/ietf46/default.html .

---

From: "Steven M. Bellovin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Oct 1999 20:09:59 -0400

In message <[email-masked]>, Brian Lloyd writes:
> At 04:40 PM 10/11/99 -0400, you wrote:
> >Hello all,
> >
> How about some IEEE 802.11 DSS stuff?  I own an IEEE 802.11 DSS card.  I
> don't own any FH cards.  Maybe I am in the minority and should shut up.  On
> the other hand, there may be others in my boat and would like to have
> support for the direct sequence cards too (or instead).

I'd like to know what it's really going to be -- the Web page 
(http://standards.nortelnetworks.com/ietf46/terminal_rooms.html) says DS.

		--Steve Bellovin

---

From: "Steven M. Bellovin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Oct 1999 20:09:59 -0400

--Steve Bellovin

---

From: "Doug Moeller" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Oct 1999 20:19:33 -0400

It's FH .  The web page is wrong.   Can you get the web page fixed John?
Thanks

                -DOug

-----Original Message-----
From: Steven M. Bellovin <[email-masked]>
To: Brian Lloyd <[email-masked]>
Cc: Doug Moeller <[email-masked]>; [email-masked] <[email-masked]>
Date: Monday, October 11, 1999 4:10 PM
Subject: Re: Wireless @ D.C. IETF

>> >  2K) machines.  So,  in an effort to make up for our lameness and to
provid
>> e

---

From: "Doug Moeller" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Oct 1999 20:19:33 -0400

-DOug

-----Original Message-----
From: Steven M. Bellovin <[email-masked]>
To: Brian Lloyd <[email-masked]>
Cc: Doug Moeller <[email-masked]>; [email-masked] <[email-masked]>
Date: Monday, October 11, 1999 4:10 PM
Subject: Re: Wireless @ D.C. IETF

provid

---

From: "Doug Moeller" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Oct 1999 20:25:50 -0400

We have no plans right now to support DS.  We chose to provide FH instead of
DS because we are able to scale an FH network better.  Though DS has a
higher throughput then FH,  it doesn't scale so well when we have a large
number of users in a small geographic area.  With FH we can deploy multiple
Access Points in a relatively small area and load balance across them.    We
are binging 500 NIC's for sale/loan so scalability is a chief concern.
Since FH and DS use the same spectrum, deploying both could prove to be
ugly.  I think there is a plan to support the older proprietary Wavelan
stuff. (It uses a different spectrum)

                        -Doug

-----Original Message-----
From: Brian Lloyd <[email-masked]>
To: Doug Moeller <[email-masked]>
Cc: [email-masked] <[email-masked]>
Date: Monday, October 11, 1999 3:40 PM
Subject: Re: Wireless @ D.C. IETF

>>  2K) machines.  So,  in an effort to make up for our lameness and to
provide
>Brian Lloyd                                    Lucent Technologies
>[email-masked]                                3461 Robin Lane, Suite 1
>http://www.livingston.com                      Cameron Park, CA  95682
>+1.530.676.6513 - voice                        +1.530.676.3442 - fax
>
>
>

---

From: Stuart Cheshire <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Oct 1999 13:45:01 -0700

>I'll give you a free Wireless Access Point(10BaseT to wireless ethernet 
>bridge) and a PCMCIA Wireless NIC if you can provide a functioning
>driver by 8:00am on Sunday Nov. 6th for one of the following platforms
>
>...

I fear you will have trouble finding anyone to do the Mac version. Apple 
already has IEEE 802.11 (DS) at 11Mb/s, and the price is only $99 for the 
card and $299 for the Ethernet/Wireless/Modem base station. Starting with 
this summer's new Macs, they all have dual antennas built in to the 
plastics, so you get much better signal strength and you don't have 
inconvenient little dongles hanging out the side of the computer.

Anyone with the necessary skills to write your driver would probably be 
able to afford $400 to buy their own hardware.

On a related note, Apple sells about six million machines a year, and the 
$99 wireless option is reported to be very popular. Don't underestimate 
the effect that this will have in establishing a de-facto standard for 
wireless LANs. Once 11Mb/s wireless networking gets established at a $99 
retail price-point, it won't easily be displaced until we have something 
that's a lot faster, or a lot cheaper, or both. 10Mb/s Ethernet was 
around for more than a decade before people finally made the switch to 
100Mb/s.

Stuart Cheshire <[email-masked]>
 * <A HREF="http://ResComp.Stanford.EDU/~cheshire/">Web Page</A>
 * Wizard Without Portfolio, Apple Computer