Subject: WaveLAN Bronze and IETF wireless?

From: "RL 'Bob' Morgan" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2000 22:31:50 +0930 (CST)

I hate to bug the list with this, but I suspect I may not be the only one
with this problem.

I brought with me to IETF 47 a WaveLAN Turbo Bronze wireless card which I
use daily in my office at home, but it doesn't appear to work with the
WaveLAN-Silver-based wireless net here (the LEDs flash briefly as though
it's not finding the named network).  Other folks here with Bronze cards
also find they don't work, regardless of laptop or OS.  So are we bronze
toters just out of luck?  Is it a known thing that WaveLAN Bronze cards
are not interoperable with Silver?  Anything to be done to fix?

Thanks for any info,

 - RL "Bob"

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From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 06:56:18 +0930

> it's not finding the named network).

as far as a bunch of us can tell, the access points are poorly configured
(in many ways), and the wireless folk are not motivated to make things work
which they do not sell.

randy

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 07:38:30 +0800 (SGT)

[ From: [email-masked] ][ Date: 22:31 (+0930), Mar 27, 2000 ]

    > 
    > I hate to bug the list with this, but I suspect I may
    > not be the only one with this problem.
    > 
    > I brought with me to IETF 47 a WaveLAN Turbo Bronze
    > wireless card which I use daily in my office at home,
    > but it doesn't appear to work with the
    > WaveLAN-Silver-based wireless net here (the LEDs
    > flash briefly as though it's not finding the named
    > network).  Other folks here with Bronze cards also
    > find they don't work, regardless of laptop or OS.  
    > So are we bronze toters just out of luck?  Is it a
    > known thing that WaveLAN Bronze cards are not
    > interoperable with Silver?  Anything to be done to
    > fix?
    > 
    > Thanks for any info,
    > 
    >  - RL "Bob"

The Wavelan site does mention that once the cards' firwares are
upgraded to version 6.0, which in this case is so, the base
stations (aka access points) also need to be upgraded; however
once they (access points) are upgraded, the version 4.0 of the
firmware in the older(bronze) cards will NOT work with the
upgraded base stations.

I am stuck with a so-called "old" card as well. :(

/amlan.

---

From: "Andrew G. Malis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2000 20:15:12 -0500

For another data point ...

I had the identical problem with my bronze card (flash briefly).  I got one 
of the silver cards and plugged it in, and it just worked with my existing 
Bronze 4.0 driver and application.  I didn't need to update either the 
silver card firmware or the driver SW.  This is on NT 4.0.

Cheers,
Andy

-------

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From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 11:04:16 +0930

> silver card firmware or the driver SW.  This is on NT 4.0.

a number of folk spent some time swaping (recently flashed) cards.  silver
was the only thing that worked.

and this was since shiller and gang disabled the rogue access point in hall
b at about 21:00 last eve.

randy

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2000 21:53:28 -0500

The current theory is that the wavelan access points are configred not
to fall back to 2mbps operation.  Matt Blaze reported that he had a 2
mbps Silver card that didn't work.    According to Angelos, if there is
a single 2 mbps card in the radio network, the entire network falls back
to 2 mbps, which is why there is a configuration option to lock the
network at 11 mbps.

So for those people who are reporting that their cards don't work, it's
important to list not just whether you have a Bronze, Silver, or Gold
card (which referrs to how strong crypto is used in the rather pointless
WEP system, since everyone shares the same key), but also whether you
have a 2mbps or 11mps card.   Apparently if you have a Bronze 11mbps
card, it *will* work, and if you have a Silver 2mpbs card, it won't.

If someone has datapoints to prove or disprove this particular theory,
do speak up, but from what we were able to determine last night, this
seems to be what's going on.

						- Ted

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 10:55:50 +0800 (SGT)

[ From: [email-masked] ][ Date: 11:04 (+0930), Mar 28, 2000 ]

    > a number of folk spent some time swaping (recently
    > flashed) cards.  silver was the only thing that
    > worked.

I do not think just swapping will help.  I have one of the old
cards. And after updating my "old" bronze card (nothing is
written on top of it, so I presume it must be bronze as it was
bought long time back and is 2 Mbps max) with the version 6 of
the firmware and installing the new drivers, my "old" card seems
to be working just fine.  By the way, this is under Linux (kernel
2.2.5).

/amlan.

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 11:31:56 +0800 (SGT)

[ From: [email-masked] ][ Date: 21:53 (-0500), Mar 27, 2000 ]

    > If someone has datapoints to prove or disprove this
    > particular theory, do speak up, but from what we were
    > able to determine last night, this seems to be what's
    > going on.
    > 
    > 						- Ted

Well, seems like I am able to prove otherwise, unless of course
the upgrade of the firmware has upgraded the capability of my
card from 2 Mbps to 11 Mbps as well ;-).  I am able to be on the
network with my card which when I bought it about a year ago was
labeled as 2 Mbps.

/amlan.

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From: Paul Krumviede <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 13:28:42 +0930

> to 2 mbps, which is why there is a configuration option to lock the

i'm seeing at least some of the access points fall back to 2 Mbps,
with both an 11 Mbps silver card and and a bronze turbo (5.5 Mbps?)
card. i don't have a 2 mbps card.

> seems to be what's going on.

the other issue last night was that at least one access point
(Hall B) wasn't willing to communicate with the default router,
although this seems to be working this morning.

-paul

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From: Atsushi Onoe <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 13:14:24 +0900 (JST)

> to 2 mbps,

It is not accurate.  An 11Mbps card will still be able to communicate
with an access point in 11Mbps if the signal strength is enough.
But total network throughput will decrease since the communication
between the access point ant the a 2Mbps card would occupy the radio
for longer period.

Atsushi Onoe

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From: "Angelos D. Keromytis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2000 23:25:51 -0500

>between the access point ant the a 2Mbps card would occupy the radio

According to the Lucent documentation, a network with a mix of
different cards will "operate at the highest common speed."

That documentation is from last October or so (when the Turbo cards
came out); since then, there have been about 4 revisions of the
firmware, so things may have changed.
-Angelos

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From: "Angelos D. Keromytis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 00:28:12 -0500

As a followup: it looks like Atsushi-san was correct. The statement in the
Lucent documentation (about the network operating in the maximum common speed)
apparently refers to each card-pair, and to the network in terms of
token-acquisition latency. Thanks to the connect.com people for clearing this
up.
-Angelos

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From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 01:00:47 -0500

Based on my observations and some discussions with the local
supplier...

There was a beacon-side problem yesterday that impacted
(flash-updated) Bronze (and white) cards.  They flashed some of
the beacons last night, but the software they used didn't fix the
problem.   They flashed them again this morning, and Bronze and
White cards at firmware v4.52 suddenly started working, local
drivers permitting (the drivers that work with firmware version
3.x and earlier don't work with firmware version 4.x and 6.x).

    john

--On Monday, March 27, 2000 20:15 -0500 "Andrew G. Malis"
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> I had the identical problem with my bronze card (flash
> briefly).  I got one of the silver cards and plugged it in, and
> it just worked with my existing Bronze 4.0 driver and
> application.  I didn't need to update either the silver card
> firmware or the driver SW.  This is on NT 4.0.

---

From: "RL 'Bob' Morgan" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2000 15:53:28 +0930 (CST)

Just to close the loop (and since everyone keeps asking me) my poor old
Wavelan Turbo Bronze card now works just fine here in Adelaide, without my
having to install any new firmware or drivers.  Thanks to all, especially
the terminal room/wireless net support folks, for making this work.

 - RL "Bob"