View Full Version : Cloaking in v3
lonnie
11-21-2005, 08:07 PM
Well, I am near to an agreement with the company that hired us to do the code. They will allow the feature to be included in x86 for a royalty payment to them and that is quite acceptable. I feel they have been quite reasonable.
IF you stay with Linux, and IF you stay with the current (or a mildly modified) interface, does this mean it can have a firmware upgrade similar to what is in place, so that current WRAP's and other boxes can be remotely upgraded?
I intend to move all my clients to cloaked, if possible, so that more clients can be added to sites with parallel ap-client paths on different frequencies.
(oh, and I need the ability to make some links in excess of 50 miles...)
nelson05
11-22-2005, 02:59 PM
Very good news! Definitely makes the V3 upgrade a must-have for us.
Hopefully the royalty payment won't be too steep... are you thinking about licensing this feature individually (similar to the old Atheros license) or will it be bundled into the standard router edition price?
lonnie
11-22-2005, 05:34 PM
I think a lot of people will not want it so we will make it a separate license, much like we did with Atheros support in the beginning. I am still working out the royalty fee and I'll let the Forums know when a price has been set.
Very good news! Definitely makes the V3 upgrade a must-have for us.
Hopefully the royalty payment won't be too steep... are you thinking about licensing this feature individually (similar to the old Atheros license) or will it be bundled into the standard router edition price?
phendry
11-26-2005, 11:41 AM
Multiple WRAP's talking to a WAR AP with 5MHz channels. How cool will that be :) Can't wait !!
lonnie
12-03-2005, 10:04 AM
Yes it will have that.How about WMM/WME?
Any estimate on when cloaking will be available. I am running beta5 on the only war link we had problems with and it seems more stable than starvx. I just need cloaking and I can upgrade all the war backhauls.
lonnie
02-26-2006, 09:27 AM
The driver changes for v3 will require 2 to 4 weeks. We are adding WDS for client bridging, multiple ESSID, QOS, cloaking, and a few other tweaks in that release.
When you say "more stable" does this mean "real stable" as in no lockups? How is performance?
nelson05
02-26-2006, 12:08 PM
Don't forget WEP.... this is a big one for us in being able to incorporate V3 into our live network.
Also, I'm hoping I misunderstood your comment about a release with the driver changes taking 2 to 4 weeks. Hopefully you're not talking about one release in this timeframe. I'd like to see you continue releasing features bit by bit in betas as you did last week rather than waiting to incorporate it everything into one release. I think this model has worked very well so far with V3 with mostly positive feedback and everyone understanding that it is a beta that is a work in progress.
lonnie
02-26-2006, 08:49 PM
We'll see what we can do, but some of these features require driver surgery and not just bolting on the outside. We were wanting some time to get the changes all in and stable, but we'll see about some of the tweaks that we can simply add without major changes. WEP is on the list, for sure.
WEP is the only addition I need at this point in order to actually use v3.
After that I'll really be in no hurry for cloaking and client features and QoS and whatever, I'll be too busy replacing v2 APs for a couple of weeks. My first priority is to get better reliability for some of my v2 APs. I have one place where v2 hangs once every couple of hours at best, sometimes multiple times an hour. I've completely replaced everything there 3 times (including antennas and grounding, boards, radios, enclosures) and right now instead of PoE I'm using AC power up the tower still with no better luck.
go.fast
02-27-2006, 01:09 AM
How long before cloaking gets back into the war boards?
I need to upgrade wars I have to continue building out, but all my wars are cloaking.
Cloaking is something we are currently working on. WEP and other features are at the top of the list as well.
lonnie
02-28-2006, 02:21 PM
Cloaking will be released today, after a wee bit more testing. We are currently doing a 52 mile shot. It is has been solid all morning, so we are feeling good about its release.
gregclemmons
02-28-2006, 09:00 PM
Lonnie,
Thanks. We were waiting to look at v3 until cloaking was supported as we have a couple of long shots.
gregclemmons
go.fast
03-01-2006, 09:09 AM
Thanks Lonnie
Cloaking has worked out great for us with Wars and VX.
It helped let us deploy additional links that we previously couldn't.
Is there any issues with cloaking PtMP?
George
There should be no issues with cloaking and PtMP installs.
robok
03-01-2006, 01:47 PM
There should be no issues with cloaking and PtMP installs.
CAan you explain me please what is that feature "CLOAKING" ?
Thank you.
Normally, Atheros cards will use 20Mhz wide channels for the 802.11a and 802.11b/g bands (40Mhz wide for turbo). Cloaking allows you to change this to use 20 (1x), 10 (2x) or 5Mhz (4x) channel widths instead. There are several benefits, one being that it makes your connection stealthy, and unseen by RF sniffers, plus it allows you to obtain much future connection distances. (up to 233KM in 4x cloaking / 5Mhz chan width mode).
With the use of a reduced band, you also reduce your overall throughput capabilities by a factor of 2 (cloaking 2x) or 4 (cloaking 4x), however in most situations, this is not a problem.
go.fast
03-01-2006, 04:21 PM
You eft out 2 more benfits.
1) You can avoid interference "in some situations" by using the skinnier channel widths.
2) And you can increase your connection quality with the skinnier channel size.
The last one I experienced in a situation that I had tried everything from higher power cards to atheros ofdm , but because of the tree obstructions and reflections of a lake I could nt get the link to be reliable and it always had some packet loss (yechhh)
Cloaking gave me a solid link, no packet loss and same speed as a full B channel.
Cloaking is "da bomb"
George
Yes, that is true. Also, it will also give you many more channels to choose from (in 802.11a), and the channels available in 2.4g will go from 3 non-overlapping, to 11. (or more depends on country).
robok
03-02-2006, 01:15 AM
Yes, that is true. Also, it will also give you many more channels to choose from (in 802.11a), and the channels available in 2.4g will go from 3 non-overlapping, to 11. (or more depends on country).
In ETSI coutries is prohibited use TURBO with 40MHz width of channel, but I don`t know if is it permit use another width of channel as is specified in ETSI papers - 20Mhz,... in this case /CLOAKING/ lower width. Dou you have response from other peoples if is it legal in Europe?
I don't think there will be a problem. Cloaking by nature reduces the bandwidth below the already allowed 20Mhz for the ETSI countries.