Subject: IETF meeting wireless "standard"

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 09 Feb 2000 11:21:24 +0100

Folks,

Although providers of Internet access at IETF meetings are free to add all 
sorts of functional enhancements, there are some basics that have become 
standard, such as DHCP-based RJ-45 Ethernet access.

Given the remarkable benefit that we have experienced with wireless access, 
recently, I'd like to suggest that we declare it a standard for IETF 
meetings.

My impression from online discussions prior to the last IETF meeting, is 
that there is a rough consensus that 802.11 DS (2Mbps/11Mbps) is the 
technology choice, for the current market.

(I've already been told that Adelaide will support this, so this thread 
does not affect their service efforts.)

My reason for the particular timing of this note is to wonder -- if there 
is consensus about long-term support for 802.11 DS -- whether a bulk 
purchase of cards for a discounted price is worth pursuing prior to (or at) 
Adelaide?

d/

=-=-=-=-=
Dave Crocker  <[email-masked]>
Brandenburg Consulting  <www.brandenburg.com>
Tel: +1.408.246.8253,  Fax: +1.408.273.6464
675 Spruce Drive,  Sunnyvale, CA 94086 USA

Gong Xi Fa Cai   /  Selamat Tahun Baru Cina

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From: "Theodore Y. Ts'o" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2000 09:23:19 -0500

Date: Wed, 09 Feb 2000 11:21:24 +0100
   From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>

Prior.  Definitely prior; that way folks don't have to spend the first
half of the week hacking support for the 802.11 DS card into NetBSD,
Linux, BSDI, et. al.  :-)

I'm definitely interested.  So do we have someone with a company
connection who can get the IETF a good bulk discount on 801.11 DS cards?
Especially the 11 megabit variant...  (Is Adelaide going to have 11 mbps
support?) 

						- Ted

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From: "Theodore Y. Ts'o" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2000 09:23:19 -0500

- Ted

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From: Mark Prior <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2000 12:31:15 +1030

The current plan is to have 802.11 DS 11Mbps support. I am still
working on the final details with two vendors (who are also interested
in doing an IETF special deal on the cards). If I can get appropriate
access points we wlll also have 802.11 FH support but that is of a
lesser priority for me at this stage.

As a local host I would certainly like to see the IETF say "the
wireless standard is x" (for one single value of x) as trying to pull
this together is tough enough as it is without having to source two
different types of wireless cards (luckily for me GSM uses 900MHz :-)

Mark.

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From: Mark Prior <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2000 12:31:15 +1030

Mark.

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From: Matt Holdrege <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2000 13:16:18 -0800

>half of the week hacking support for the 802.11 DS card into NetBSD,

There is a neat FAQ at http://www.wavelan.com/products/faq/ and one of the 
FAQ items says: The WaveLAN Network Interface Cards (NICs) include NDIS and 
ODI client drivers, allowing WaveLAN to work in the Windows 95/98, Windows 
NT, Win2K, Apple, Linux and Novell environments. I seem to recall that 
someone has already done NetBSD and BSDI for these cards, but I've lost 
that email.

>Especially the 11 megabit variant...  (Is Adelaide going to have 11 mbps

I've been working on getting Lucent to sponsor DS 11Mbps base station 
support as well as a deep IETF-special discount on new 11mbps PCMCIA cards. 
More information to come soon.

BTW, if you have older slower Wavelan gear the new base stations are 
backwards compatible.

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From: Matt Holdrege <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2000 13:16:18 -0800