Subject: report on the wlan difficulties in IETF?

From: Jari Arkko <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 15:15:54 +0200

Hello,

I wonder if anyone has documented the situation of the IETF wireless
network and analyzed the experienced difficulties? I'd be interested
in looking at the causes of the difficulties. There's a lot of anecdotal
information about the capabilities of the protocols and advice on what
to do on this list. But it would be good to know what was the real cause
of difficulties. Say, its pretty useless to authenticate beacons if
the radios are simply swamped by too many nodes who think they are
access points. Similarly, access control a la 802.1X does not help
if the interferences are caused during or before access authentication
has taken place. Or a correctly operating radio network is no good if
all of its capacity is used by the legitimate, but infected, hosts
for something non-productive. The bottom line is that finger pointing
(staff, ieee, fcc, ourselves...), if useful at all, should come after we
find out what happened.

I suspect the IETF network is pretty the worst case scenario for
current wireless LANs (or can someone point an even more demanding
case?). But what we do today will be done tomorrow by regular users...

--Jari

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From: "Theodore Ts'o" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 09:40:51 -0500

Just as a whimsical notion.... would it be possible to, ah, invite
some of the 802.11* wireless committees to have a colocated meeting
with the IETF at some point in the future?  We could dangle the offer
of "free" wireless networking, plus an offer for them to see what a
real-life, large-scale deployment wireless is really like.  Give them
a chance for them to eat their own dog-food. 

It might be interesting to let the 802.11i folks see what life with
unathenticated radio beacons is really like.  :-)

						- Ted

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From: Brett Thorson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 10:18:35 -0500

Jari,

I will be working on a summary document that pulls together the technical 
items we witnessed at the meeting.  

--Brett

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From: [email-masked] (Mike S)
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 10:41:19 -0500

At 08:15 AM 11/19/2003, Jari Arkko wrote...
>Say, its pretty useless to authenticate beacons if
>access points....

This is not a technical issue. By taking advantage of unlicensed frequencies, 802.1a/b/g must not cause interference with licensed services, and must accept interference from other users, at least in the US. There really is no basis for any complaint of lack of service due to interference from any other WLAN or ISM device/user.

If you desire a somewhat assured RF medium, explored using licensed frequencies, but then you'll have to live with other restraints.

Mike

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From: "Steven M. Bellovin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 11:23:00 -0500

>unathenticated radio beacons is really like.  :-)

You mean invite them to SAAG and tell the obvious people that it's open 
season?  Nasty....

		--Steve Bellovin, http://www.research.att.com/~smb

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From: Jari Arkko <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 18:23:15 +0200

> items we witnessed at the meeting.  

Great, thanks!

Also, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you and the
rest of the folks who set up the networks for our meetings.
The networks have worked extremely well. Yes, we had problems
this time but I don't think it was your fault. If we find out
why, it may even improve the protocols. Much of this is volunteer
work, and we need to respect the folks who do it. So lets not
complain about the network difficulties, lets work to resolve
them. And volunteer to help next time...

--Jari