On Mon, 12 Sep 2005 17:35:21 +0200, Marcel Joustra
<mrf.joustra@ditweghavank.nl> wrote:
>If i have an accesspoint 80211 G, but have multiple clients using B or
>G, will the clients using G have slower rates?
You'll see a slowdown in 802.11g even if there's no traffic to the
802.11b clients.
In general, the max thruput for 802.11g gets cut in half in the
presence of 802.11b. What happens is that the 802.11g access point
has to occasionally switch to 802.11b in order to detect 802.11b
transmissions. That's because *ALL* management packets for 802.11b
are at the slowest speed of 1Mbit/sec. If the access point doesn't
hear anything on 802.11b, it just goes back to 802.11g mode after
about 200msec. However, if it hears just one 802.11b broadcast or
packet, it will sit there waiting for 802.11b data for perhaps 3-5
seconds. That's a huge amount of time to not move any 802.11g data.
If you're transferring data at full 802.11g speeds, and just one
802.11b packet drifts by, you stop for a long time. There's also the
possibility of packet collisions if the 802.11b transmissions do not
coincide with when the access point is listening for 802.11b packets.
Obviously, the 802.11b client radio cannot hear 802.11g transmissions.
This is stolen from an Atheros PDF at:
http://www.atheros.com/pt/atheros_range_whitepaper.pdf
with some additions and corrections by me.
Non-overlapping Modulation Max Max Max
Channels ------- | Link TCP UDP
| | | | |
802.11b 3 CCK 11 5.9 7.1
802.11g (with
802.11b) 3 OFDM/CCK 54 14.4 19.5
802.11g only 3 OFDM 54 24.4 30.5
802.11g turbo 1 OFDM 108 42.9 54.8
802.11a 13 OFDM 54 24.4 30.5
802.11a turbo 6 OFDM 108 42.9 54.8
The paper claims that encryption is enabled for these calculations,
but my numbers seem to indicate that these number are for encryption
disabled. Dunno for sure. The Max TCP and Max UDP are the
theoretical maximum thruput rates.
There are various chipsets that claim to have "solved" the
compatibility issue. At best, they tinker with the timing and b/g
selection algorithms. I've seen improvements, but not solutions.
Meru claims they have solved the problem by "masking" the two
protocols from each other. I can't find any details on their web
pile:
> http://www.merunetworks.com
The important thing to remember is that even with an 802.11b induced
slowdown, the 802.11g units operate much faster than the best that can
be done with just 802.11b. Also, most 802.11g users cannot maintain a
maximum speed connection and will be running at one of the lower
speeds. Therefore, you might not even notice a slowdown.
> http://searchnetworking.techtarget.c...003124,00.html
--
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