> I require a testing strategy for an 802.11 wireless network. The
> objective is to provide some sort of QoS. If you know of any existing
> testing strategy/framework or something suitable at least, please let
> me know. Suggestions appreciated.
Your high-level strategy depends on what you mean by quality of service.
You can measure bandwidth, signal margin, or latency, to mention a few
criteria. Are your devices mobile? Is it important that QoS (whatever
you define that to be) remain constant with distance? Are the devices
constrained to a given geographical area? Does that area have
sigificant natural and artificial features that will affect signal paths?
For geographical analysis, for example, to determine good locations for
cell phone towers, there are a few commercial software packages that you
can license. These tools use various propagation models and can be
handy for doing what-if analyses on a fixed geographical area, assuming
you have decent maps.
But even with good software models, you'll end up going out to the field
to do some measurements to do on-site validation.
An easy way to control the environment in the lab is to connect the
devices together via a transmission line. This allows you to easily
insert calibrated attenuations and/or interference.
Kelly
Reply by Jeremy Bentham●September 30, 20042004-09-30
patrick_larry_mcgrath@yahoo.ie (Patrick) wrote:
>I require a testing strategy for an 802.11 wireless network. The
>objective is to provide some sort of QoS. If you know of any existing
>testing strategy/framework or something suitable at least, please let
>me know. Suggestions appreciated.
It is difficult to image any strategy for obtaining a meaningful QoS.
Either you make optimistic assumptions and get very good data rates,
or pessimistic assumptions and get very bad data rates.
Unlike a wired network, you can't assume that all the signals are
under your control (i.e. generated by your equipment), and a wireless
network has the capability for very severe degradation when there is
excessive traffic and/or poor signal strength and/or interference.
Our customers do use WLANs in time-sensitive applications, but the
error-handling strategies in the higher protocol layers do need some
thought.
Jeremy Bentham
Iosoft Ltd.
Reply by Patrick●September 27, 20042004-09-27
Hi,
I require a testing strategy for an 802.11 wireless network. The
objective is to provide some sort of QoS. If you know of any existing
testing strategy/framework or something suitable at least, please let
me know. Suggestions appreciated.
Regards
Patrick