Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2000 13:22:32 -0400
From: RJ Atkinson <rja(_at_)inet(_dot_)org>
Actually, IETF has made IEEE 802.11-DSSS the convention for wireless
LANs at all IETF meetings for some time now. This has been supported
at least at Oslo, DC, Adelaide, (and will be at Pittsburgh). It probably
has been supported for some significant time before Oslo, though I
don't have first-hand remembrance of that. In DC, Nortel was pushing
their 802.11-FH system, but a full 802.11-DS system was up and running
in parallel.
I'm not sure that it's been officially decided as the convention, but
it's certainly been the practice most of the time (although the Nortel
use of frequency hoppers was a certainly an exception to this rule).
I think there was one other time that frequency hoppers were used in the
past; I seem to recall dispairing that we would *ever* settle on a
standard 802.11 type when I broke down and purchased a 802.11-FH PCMCIA
card. That way, I'd be ready no matter what a particular IETF meeting
site decided to use.
It would be good if we could standardize on one particular type, but as
I recall the last time the issue was raised, it was explained to me that
different systems worked better in different RF environments, so we
should get used to switching back and forth between DS and FH cards.
If we we could depend on it always being 802.11-DS, that might make a
number of people's lives easier.
Probably due to overlap in organisational membership and the
broad International acceptance of IEEE 802 standards, IEEE 802.11-DSSS
has also become the de facto standard for use at several other
networking meetings (e.g. NANOG, RIPE).
For what it's worth, 802.11-DS (both 2 and 11 mbits support) appears to
be the de facto standard at the main Usenix technical conference as
well.
- Ted