Subject: An absolutely fantastic wireless IETF

From: Harald Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 21:58:25 -0600

Just wanted to state what's obvious to all of us by now:

This time the wireless WORKED, and Just Went On Working.

That hasn't happened for a while. THANK YOU!

                     Harald

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From: "David Harrington" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 23:05:15 -0600

I'd like to second that. Great job!

dbh

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Harald Alvestrand [mailto:[email-masked]] 
> Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2006 9:58 PM
> To: [email-masked]
> Subject: An absolutely fantastic wireless IETF
> 
>

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From: Terry Gray <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 21:18:04 -0800 (Pacific Standard Time)

Perhaps someone could document what was done differently this time, so 
that all may learn the secret?

-teg

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From: Ken Raeburn <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 23:35:13 -0600

> That hasn't happened for a while. THANK YOU!

Mmm... well, my laptop (Mac Powerbook) fell off the b/g network  
several times, mostly during plenary sessions, but the problems were  
brief, and I usually had no trouble getting back on.  It wasn't  
perfect, but very much improved over previous meetings.

Ken

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From: JORDI PALET MARTINEZ <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 00:43:12 -0600

I second Harald's comment. It has been fantastic in general, congratulations
!

Before coming to Dallas, I decided to buy the "a/b/g" USB dongle for my Mac
from Zyxel, which was posted on this list, however the driver has a bug and
doesn't support IPv6. Unfortunately the support seems to be terrible as they
didn't reacted to any of my emails.

But as most of the people seems that were using "a" anyway, I still used
during all the meeting my "b/g" internal interface and only noticed what Ken
indicated below a few times, disturbing but acceptable.

I also noticed that IPv6 disappeared from the network and reported it to the
NOC. I think they figured out the problem at least in one of the APs or
whatever it was. I've requested to know the reason but got no information at
the time being.

A report with all this info will be extremely useful for sure !

Regards,
Jordi

> De: Ken Raeburn <[email-masked]>
> Responder a: <[email-masked]>
> Fecha: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 23:35:13 -0600
> Para: ietf Mailing List <[email-masked]>
> Asunto: Re: An absolutely fantastic wireless IETF
> 

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From: Marshall Eubanks <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 05:58:26 -0500

I agree. I never got around to buying an 802.11a NIC card, but
I never really felt like I needed it here.

The worst it got was that in some of the full rooms my Mac
would drop the link once or twice in an hour, and have to be manually  
reconnected to the network.

And, I noticed a singular lack of computer to computer ad hoc networks.

My profound thanks to everyone who worked on this.

Marshall

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From: "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 06:18:49 -0600

At the beginning of our Jabber "experiment" several years ago, I volunteered 
to Jabber-scribe exactly once, fell off the network five minutes into a 
working group meeting, spent ten minutes trying to get hooked back up, gave 
up, and never volunteered again until this IETF.

I never felt like that was the wrong decision (I always volunteered to 
scribe, just never on Jabber). At some meetings, the network was reliable 
enough to make me wonder, but all I did was wonder - not volunteer to 
Jabber-scribe, and if things didn't work on Monday morning of the following 
meeting, I stopped wondering.

I Jabber-scribed for several sessions here, and never had a problem.

Just to mention a minor point - having reliable wireless is critical for 
remote participants (yes, they can listen to the audio stream, but without 
someone at least monitoring Jabber for questions, all they can do is send 
e-mail to the list, where it will be read the next time local participants 
DO have working wireless.

Thank you, NOC team, especially on behalf of remote participants.

And, to mention the other point - at this meeting I was asked to 
Jabber-scribe by several chairs who had already found scribes before the 
meeting started - thank you guys (and gals) for being on the ball here, too!

Spencer

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From: Ray Pelletier <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 08:31:11 -0500

Spencer,
Thanks for all your scribe contributions.  They add real value to the 
process.
The wireless has been fantastic.  A great job by Nokia and our intrepid 
volunteers.
This meeting Jabber services were provided by NeuStar Secretariat 
Services pursuant to the SOW.  Much thanks to Peter Saint Andre and 
others who made that happen in the past.  Their efforts demonstrated the 
indespensible value to the process.

Ray
IAD

Spencer Dawkins wrote:

> At the beginning of our Jabber "experiment" several years ago, I 
> volunteered to Jabber-scribe exactly once, fell off the network five 
> minutes into a working group meeting, spent ten minutes trying to get 
> hooked back up, gave up, and never volunteered again until this IETF.
>
> scribe, just never on Jabber). At some meetings, the network was 
> reliable enough to make me wonder, but all I did was wonder - not 
> volunteer to Jabber-scribe, and if things didn't work on Monday 
> morning of the following meeting, I stopped wondering.
>
> Just to mention a minor point - having reliable wireless is critical 
> for remote participants (yes, they can listen to the audio stream, but 
> without someone at least monitoring Jabber for questions, all they can 
> do is send e-mail to the list, where it will be read the next time 
> local participants DO have working wireless.
>
> Jabber-scribe by several chairs who had already found scribes before 
> the meeting started - thank you guys (and gals) for being on the ball 
> here, too!
>
> Spencer
>
>

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From: Tim Chown <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 13:42:53 +0000

> perfect, but very much improved over previous meetings.

Same symptoms here, in the 'distant' rooms (Cortez et al) when the
rooms were full my Powerbook would lose association frequently, but
always rejoin when I forced it manually.
 
I'd love to know what was causing that; I've never seen similar
symptoms before.  My ssh sessions would survive the drops though :)
I don't know whether I was using b or g.

Maybe a Mac thing?

-- 
Tim/::1

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From: Pekka Nikander <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 07:16:03 -0600

Related to this, an update to my problems with the OrangeWare Mac  
driver:

After having exchanged a few e-mails with the tech support, they  
finally figured out that they driver indeed did not work with the  
card I had.  So, eventually, they agreed to swap my DWL-AG660 card  
against an SMC card.  As far as I know, they are now working on the  
DWL-AG660 (European version) to add support for that.  Much of the  
confusion was caused by that apparently there are least two versions  
of the DWL-AG660 card, one sold in the US and the other one, sold at  
least in Finland and probably also elsewhere in the Europe.

Anyway, I have been happy 11a camper here in Dallas, and after these  
troubles, I am happy user of the OrangeWare driver.

--Pekka Nikander

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From: Ned Freed <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 07:20:31 -0800 (PST)

> That hasn't happened for a while. THANK YOU!

Agreed. I had a couple of problems early in the week, but after that it Just
Worked, even at the plenaries.

Kudos to those who made it happen.

				Ned

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From: Yu-Shun Wang <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 09:52:10 -0600

> I don't know whether I was using b or g.

Just another me-too data point about the Mac. It'll be
good to know why that happened. Mine is a 15" Powerbook.

I also brought a Cisco 11a NIC, and used it about 3-4
times w/out any problems.

yushun

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From: Tony Hansen <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 10:59:26 -0500

I've been a happy camper since switching to 11a several meetings ago. It
wasn't intentional; I had just gotten a new laptop that just happened to
have a/b/g. But while everyone else was losing their connections, the
11a network just kept humming along. Life was no different at this
meeting; the 11a network worked flawlessly all week along. Thanks NOC!

Jabber/xmpp has certainly become pervasive in our environment. At first
it was just a convenient side channel; then it became useful for taking
notes or scribing, when it worked; and now it's practically considered
indispensible in some working groups. It's been an interesting progression.

One benefit I especially appreciate is being able to find out who some
of the speakers are after they mumble their names at the mike. :-)

	Tony Hansen
	[email-masked]

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From: Andrew McGregor <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 11:52:07 -0600

> times w/out any problems.

The problem also occurs with Broadcom radios on PowerBooks under  
Linux, so it isn't OS X, it seems to be the Broadcom radio or its  
drivers.

Andrew

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From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 16:00:21 +0100

> that all may learn the secret?

A lot of it is obsessive attention to detail, but the other part is
choosing equipment that is known to work at IETF scale.

Writing it up is a good idea, if our good friends from Nokia and the
volunteer crew can find time for a brain dump.

Needless to say I second Harald's thanks, especially given the
waterfalls in the NOC on Sunday afternoon.

     Brian

---

From: Bill Fenner <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 15:55:45 -0800

>brief, and I usually had no trouble getting back on.

Ken,

  I experienced this too, several times.  Our best guess was that it
had to do with the older IOS that was running on the hotel APs.  This was
another lesson learned about using someone else's equipment - it's not
necessarily as up to date as the IETF needs.

  Bill

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 04:49:10 +0000

> That hasn't happened for a while. THANK YOU!

	for novel interpretations of "WORKED", i'll
	have to agree with you.  In the rooms in Atrium I,
	we had very strong signal but never a DHCP lease was 
	seen - on the 802.11b network.  the whole week.
	it was reported in the tracker.  I am greatful for
	folks w/ MAC's that had both "a" and "b" cards.
	building an ad-hoc network got others online.

--bill

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 04:49:10 +0000

--bill

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From: "Lucy E. Lynch" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 09:09:04 -0800 (PST)

> 	building an ad-hoc network got others online.

Note that this was not an IETF meeting and the NOC reported back 
several times that the hotel switch in question was outside our 
control - not in the IETF room blocks - so the vender didn't enable 
our vlans.  We had no way to route IETF network to that particular 
switch. We offered to help get you moved to a room with vlans enabled, 
and I never heard back...

-- 
Lucy E. Lynch 				Academic User Services
Computing Center			University of Oregon
llynch  @darkwing.uoregon.edu		(541) 346-1774