Improving IT service quality within your organisation 19/06/2005
Assessing the standards in wireless
Neil Pawley
Improving IT service quality within your organisation 19/06/2005
Contents
• Lots and lots of standards
• Alphabet soup
• The 802 family
• Range and mobility
• Issues
• Conclusion
Improving IT service quality within your organisation 19/06/2005
Lots and lots of standards
Wide family of specifications (a, b, d, h, I, j etc)
Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN)
Range of frequencies and speeds
Popularly known as WiFi
802.11x
Bluetooth leads the way
Wireless Personal Area Network (WPAN)802.15
Broadband Wireless Access (BWA)
WiMAX
Not as simple as it sounds
Still a lot to do
802.16x
Mobile Broadband Wireless Access (MBWA)
Potential conflict802.20
Improving IT service quality within your organisation 19/06/2005
Alphabet soup
IEEE – Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers
OFDM – Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing
TDMA – Time division Multiple Access
MAC – Media Access Control layer
WEP – Wired Equivalent Privacy
IPSec – Internet Protocol Security
WPA – WiFi Protected Access
OFDM – Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing
WMAN – Wireless Metropolitan Area Network
BWA – Broadband Wireless Access
Improving IT service quality within your organisation 19/06/2005
802.11x WiFi
• Up to 54 Mbps
• 5.7 – 5.8 GHz
• Interference free
• Good for office setting
802.11a
• Up to 11 Mbps
• 2.4 GHz
• Backwards compatible
• The one most people think of
802.11b
• Same as 802.11b
• Allows users to modify transmission band
802.11d
Improving IT service quality within your organisation 19/06/2005
802.11x WiFi
• Update of 802.11a specification
• Resolve interference with military and medical
802.11h (not formalised)
• Improved encryption for 802.11a, b and g
• Government requirements
• Special chip required
802.11i
• Incorporate Japanese specialist extensions
802.11j (not formalised)
Improving IT service quality within your organisation 19/06/2005
802.15 - Bluetooth
• Wireless Personal Area Network (WPAN)
• Everything on the desk
• Bluetooth is only one flavour
• 30ft transmission radius
• Proximity connection
• Selective lock out
Improving IT service quality within your organisation 19/06/2005
802.16-2004 WiMAX
• Controlled by IEEE and WiMAX Forum
• Wireless (Wi) Microwave Access (MA)
• BWA – Broadband Wireless Access
• Static
• Building to building
• One to many
• Very similar to WiFi
Improving IT service quality within your organisation 19/06/2005
Two proposed transport methodologies
LOS66 Ghz
LOS66 Ghz
NLOS2-11 Ghz
• Cabled to broadcast antenna
• Point-to-multipoint (P2MP)
• Customer Premises Units (CPEs)
• Limited in scalability
• Final link to 802.11
• Offers cheap expansion of broadband
• Not required in cabled areas
Traditional
Improving IT service quality within your organisation 19/06/2005
LOS66 Ghz
NLOS2-11 Ghz
• Node to node
• Customer Premises Units (CPEs)
• Non line of sight
• Traffic routing
• Fault tolerance
• Load balancing
• More users, more effective
• Self-organising neighbourhood
Two proposed transport methodologies
Mesh
Improving IT service quality within your organisation 19/06/2005
802.16e Mobile WiMAX
• IEEE have made it official (December 2005)
• No guaranteed compatibility with 802.16-2004
• Maybe dual chip in future
• Semi nomadic
• Similar to early days of mobile phones
• Only good for wandering around
Improving IT service quality within your organisation 19/06/2005
802.20
• Mobile Broadband Wireless Access (MBWA)
• Another 802.16e?
• Mired in conflict
• Frequencies below 3.5 GHz
• Enable data transfer at speed
• Travelling in a car or train
• Isn’t this what 3G is trying to do?
Improving IT service quality within your organisation 19/06/2005
Range and mobility
802.15
802.11x
802.16
802.20
100 Mbps30 miles
16 Mbps2 - 4 miles
Don’tmove
30 ft
300 ft
54 Mbps
3G 2 Mbps
2 – 4 miles
Improving IT service quality within your organisation 19/06/2005
Issues
• Further away, less bandwidth
• More users, less bandwidth
• Real time numbers smaller than manufacturers claims
• Large overhead in wireless negotiation
• Some of this is over 18 months away
• Compromises in metropolitan mesh experiments• San Francisco
• New Orleans
• Dundee
Improving IT service quality within your organisation 19/06/2005
Conclusions
• Massive collection of standards
• Many still being worked on
• Pick what you need
• Don’t believe everything you read
• When to take the plunge
• What benefits can be realised