RE: [WIRELESS-LAN] Meru Question

[Frank Bulk]

Mike:   You make some good points about channel bonding and I should point out that it is an optional element of the 802.11n standard, not required.  You are sure to see enterprise WLAN vendors recommend the use of one channel in the 2.4 GHz range.   Things are not so dire in the 5 GHz band as you make them out to be: we have at least 8 channels today with most  vendors, and if you count them all up it's about 23 or so if you add the upper UNII and the 255 MHz that the FCC added many months ago.  Even if you bond you have at least 10 channels in that range to choose from, so channel planning won't be that horrific.  My belief is that 5 GHz won't be put into serious use in the enterprise until 802.11n is deployed at the end of next year.   Frank From: Ruiz, Mike [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, June 27, 2006 7:58 AM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Meru Question Don,             As a Meru user I can personally tell you that Meru’s system does not negatively impact any other access points unless you put them on overlapping channels or use the rogue suppression.  As far as the “bug” this is simply not true, and I can provide more detail regarding this if you want but didn’t want to bore anyone.  There are lots of tests here and independent tests to verify the first.  Likewise Meru uses Atheros technology and 100% 802.11 standards compliant client side technology.                          My perspective on 802.11n is that Meru is most uniquely positioned to make 11n a workable reality.  Forget the fact that they will continue to eliminate co-channel interference and contention across cells making the bandwidth promised by 11n a reality.  The real core of what makes 11n work is that each channel uses more bandwidth.  Thus in the 2.4GHz space you will essentially need two of the three available channels to serve 11n.  Well if you’re using 1 and 6 or 6 and 11 what are you left with for neighboring cells?  A coordinated design that can overlap without interfering will be required unless another “band-aid” solution like micro-cells is developed.  Or you can move the 5Ghz space, cut the number of channels in half and then be faced with all the problems plaguing 802.11g today.  It’s consistently amazing to me that vendors tout 11n as a solution when problems like the crash in available bandwidth when 3 or more users come online remains a reality.    Cheers, Mike   -- Michael Ruiz Network and Enterprise Systems Engineer Hobart and William Smith Colleges                 From: Donald R Gallerie [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, June 26, 2006 3:47 PM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: [WIRELESS-LAN] Meru Question   Here at the University at Albany, we had Meru come in and give us an overview on their wireless offering.   From our vantage point, it does appear that Cisco is pushing the controller-based system so we decided to look at other vendors in this space.  As part of this effort, we asked Cisco to come in and give us an overview of their offering as if they didn’t already have a presence on campus.   One of the items that came up had to do with Meru’s method of distributing timeframes to clients (don’t know if I’m phrasing this correctly).  The Cisco engineers said that Meru’s methodology works well in a Meru-only rollout but that they would negatively impact other, non-Meru access points. Additionally, the said that there is a “bug” in the current 802.11b/g standard that Meru takes advantage of and that it may not be there in future (802.11n) standards.   Not that I would doubt anything Cisco says but has anyone heard any similar remarks or can anyone expand on Cisco’s claims?   Thanks….   Don Gallerie The University at Albany ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/ ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/ ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.