IP: : more on Intel wants to turn PCs into wireless LAN accesspoints

[David Farber <dfarber@earthlink.net>]

-----Original Message-----
From: "David P. Reed" <dpreed@reed.com>
Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 11:17:35 
To: farber@cis.upenn.edu, ip-sub-1@majordomo.pobox.com
Subject: Re: IP: more on  Intel wants to turn PCs into wireless LAN
  accesspoints

Mac bigots, because they are not technical, frequently get confused by 
Apple's marketing hype.

1. The PC world is full of 802.11 cards that can share an internet 
connection using MS's ICS capability (Win 98, ME, XP all provide ICS).

What Intel is proposing is something that Airports on Macintoshes *don't* 
do.  A Mac with an Airport *cannot* be a true 802.11 access point, because 
the firmware in the Lucent chipset does not support being an access 
point.  I won't belabor you with technical details, but being an access 
point involves quite a few important functions of the 802.11 MAC layer (not 
Mac layer...), which dramatically enhance capacity.

Also setting up two Macintoshes or PCs to share a single dialup internet 
service is not something that requires Macintoshes.  A PC using ICS can 
share its connection with iBooks, as well as PCs.  Macintoshes can share 
their connection with PCs.  In all these cases, today, no one is an Access 
Point.

What Intel is proposing is to let PCs run software that provides the *full* 
802.11 MAC layer Access Point - the same thing that is provided by LinkSys, 
Orinoco, Cisco, Compaq, 3Com, ... access point hardware boxes.   To do so, 
they have to be able to download into their card a special version of the 
MAC and radio firmware that the vendors have typically only licensed to 
router vendors.

2. Mr. Cutler was probably violating hospital rules by setting up his 
network.   Hospitals have, for good and not so good reasons, rules banning 
use of radio transmitters in the hospital.   They interfere, for example, 
with sensitive instruments.   If my son were in the ICU, I'd be nervous 
about doing what they did.  And the kids in the next bed might care, 
too.  Hopefully most medical equipment is immune to 2.4GHz radiation at 
these levels, and I hope they are also immune to cell phones which 
broadcast at significantly higher power, even when you aren't talking they 
are bursting high power pulses occasionally to let the cell tower track them.

That the hospital personnel did not stop them doesn't prove the practice is 
safe.

What we need now are much "smarter" radio systems that negotiate 
cooperatively with their environment, to get permission to 
transmit.  Something a small number of us have been thinking about....  and 
lots better than hoping blindly that hospital rules and medical equipment 
designers have good systems to manage radio "interference" (in quotes for 
reasons I won't go into here).



At 06:18 AM 4/12/2002 -0500, David Farber wrote:

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Robb Cutler <robbc@harker.org>
>Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 04:12:10
>To: <farber@cis.upenn.edu>
>Subject: Re: IP: 2 on  Intel wants to turn PCs into wireless LAN access
>         points
>
>Prof. Farber -
>
>In December, 2000, my wife and I had the unfortunate privilege of living for
>several weeks in a pediatric intensive care unit with our 4-year-old son
>(leukemia and chicken pox are *not* a good combination -- he pulled through
>though and is doing great now...).
>
>During that time in the PICU, our communication with the outside world was
>primarily through e-mail.  We both had iBooks with Airport cards.  I dialed
>in to the internet via modem and set up my iBook as a software access point
>("software base station" in Apple terminology), my wife connected to my
>computer via Airport, and we both were able to do e-mail, surf the web, etc.
>
>It's interesting that this still hasn't made it into prime time in the
>Wintel world...
>
>Best regards,
>Robb
>--
>Robb Cutler
>Upper School Computer Science Teacher
>Dean, Class of 2005
>The Harker School
>San Jose, California
>
>
>
>On 4/12/02 1:15 AM, Dave Farber at dave@farber.net wrote:
>
> >
> > ------ Forwarded Message
> > From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne@warpspeed.com>
> >
> >
> > [Note:  This item comes from reader Mike Cheponis.  DLH]
> >
> > Intel wants to turn PCs into wireless LAN access points
> > By Rick Merritt, EE Times
> > Apr 10, 2002 (11:57 AM)
> > URL: <http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20020410S0038>
> >
> > SAN MATEO, Calif. - Intel Corp. is designing a technique for turning
> > PCs into low-cost access points for 802.11 wireless networks. While
> > not ready for prime time, early work shows the approach may cut the
> > cost of an access point by more than half for consumers.
> >
> > Intel is working on ways to repartition the software for an 802.11
> > access point so that part of the task runs on a PC host and part on
> > an 802.11 client PC card in the system. That could reduce the price
> > of a consumer access point from $250 to about $100, said Duncan
> > Kitchin, lead architect in Intel's mobile communications division.
> >
> > Microsoft Corp. is expected to detail its own take on the initiative,
> > which it dubs Soft Wi-Fi, at its Windows Hardware Engineering
> > Conference next week, though the company declined to provide
> > specifics ahead of the event.
> >
> > A desktop processor is up to the task of handling the work typically
> > run on a 25-MHz microcontroller in today's access points, Intel's
> > Kitchin said. However, Intel is still exploring ways to make sure
> > Windows - which lacks real-time computing capabilities - doesn't bog
> > down an 802.11 network when a PC is used as a software-based access
> > point. One method Intel is currently exploring involves partitioning
> > the application so that real-time tasks are handled on the client
> > 802.11 card where Intel would put a small real-time kernel.
> >
> > Software-based access points would not replace the hybrid Internet
> > gateway/access controllers sold today by companies including 2Wire,
> > Intel and Linksys. They would, however, provide a lower cost
> > alternative to those products for some consumers, he said.
> >
> > At this point, the technique does not look suitable for business
> > users who generally require access points that cost $400 or more and
> > are manageable from a central console. "This sort of approach would
> > not provide IT departments with that kind of control," Kitchin said.
> >
> > Nevertheless, "we think the soft AP is a great idea, though we don't
> > have anything we plan to release soon," he said.
> >
> > Intel said a software-based 802.11 client card is still out of the
> > question, however, mainly because the intensive DSP tasks for such a
> > device would drain too much performance and power in a host-based
> > implementation.
> >
> > Wireless LAN progress report
> >
> > Separately, Kitchin reported that the work of IEEE 802.11e on
> > quality-of-service for wireless LANs, a group he leads, could be
> > finished at the work group level by September, though the spec would
> > probably not be published in final form until the middle of next
> > year. "We have enough information now that people have been starting
> > implementation work on it in firmware," he said.
> >
> > The companion 802.11i work on security for wireless LANs is not quite
> > as far along. That spec might be in a stable enough form that
> > developers could begin firmware work after the group's May meeting,
> > Kitchin added. The .11i spec, unlike .11e, requires some hardware
> > work which may not be suitable to start until later this year when
> > the spec is more mature, he said.
> >
> > Finally, Intel may launch its first hybrid 802.11a/b products as
> > early as the Networld+Interop conference in May, according to a
> > company spokesman.
> >
> >
> > And
> >
> >> From: "Steven G. Huter" <sghuter@nsrc.org>
> >> To: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne@warpspeed.com>
> >> Subject: Re: [Dewayne-Net] Intel wants to turn PCs into wireless LAN
> >> access points
> >> Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 16:47:11 -0700
> >> MIME-Version: 1.0
> >>
> >> hi dewayne,
> >>
> >> doing it on a freebsd box...
> >>
> >> article in may 2002 issue of sysadmin magazine.
> >>
> >> <http://www.samag.com/documents/s=7121/sam0205a/sam0205a.htm>
> >>
> >> steve
> >
> > For archives see:
> > http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/
>
>For archives see:
>http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/

For archives see:
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