On 18-nov-03, at 15:56, Perry E.Metzger wrote:
The fact that 802.11 tries to be
reliable by doing its own retransmits results in massive congestive
collapse when a protocol like TCP is run over it.
Hardly. TCP plays nice and slows down when either the RTTs go up or
there is packet loss (which will happen due to congestion eventually).
Radio links like this are simply too unreliable to run without
additional protection: TCP isn't equipped to operate in environments
with double digit packet loss percentages.
What I saw in some rooms at some times in Minneapolis and also in
Atlanta is massive packet loss and huge round trip times. This
indicates there are simply too many people trying to cram too much data
through the wireless network. This isn't going to work well whichever
way you slice it.
Also, 11b has a poorly selected set of channels that overlap.
1. Talk to the FCC.
2. Why do you think there are 11 overlapping channels rather than 3
non-overlapping channels? Our colleagues at the IEEE aren't stupid.