Mark: I don't know enough about how WZC is implemented, but it seems to me to be at entirely the wrong level to be mucking much with ad-hoc mode (or even caring overly much).
802.11 defines 2 modes of interaction. 1 is called infrastructure mode the other ad-hoc mode. The names suck and aren't very evocative (at least not to me). In infrastructure mode, so named I'm guessing because someone had to build an infrastructure, there are 1 (or more?) WAPs and all wireless device interaction is device<->WAP. The WAPs are assumed to be static, and perhaps even built into the building. The networking topology is star, like a hub. Collisions can occur. A conversation between a wireless device and a wired one consists of one wireless message per message, but a conversation between two wireless devices involves 2 messages, one to the WAP and one retransmitted from the WAP. This is good, in that it allows 2 devices which couldn't by themselves reach each other to communicate, but it double the bandwidth cost. In ad-hoc mode, each device can talk to each other device and the topology is mesh. You don't get message doubling, but you also get decreased range. Most literature deprecates ad-hoc mode. It seems, according to some sources, not to have gotten all the fancy encryption options, etc. I'm not sure why this is true, and I haven't even had the time to investigate and find out if it really is true or not. I'm still running 802.11b, where the fancy encryption doesn't exist anyways. In a small, crowded environment, ad-hoc seems like the better choice, topologically (that is, if you aren't going far enough to need a repeater, why force yourself to repeat everything?). I don't know why it gets bad press. Maybe there's a good reason. I just don't know what it is. -- Michaelwagner ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Michaelwagner's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=428 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=23604 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
