Equipment interoperability key benefit of 802.11s standard

With the announcement in March that the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has confirmed a single proposal as the initial basis for the 802.11s standard, mesh network providers can start looking ahead to complying with the standard and realizing the benefits it will bring to the industry. "Usually there are either one or both of two benefits to be accrued from standards," Steve Rayment, CTO BelAir Networks Inc., tells Report on Wireless. "One of them is interoperation, which means vendor A’s equipment can talk with vendor B’s equipment. The other one is usually lower cost afforded by the economies of scale and competition of multiple vendors." IEEE 802.11s covers wireless LAN medium access control and physical layer specifications of extended service set mesh networking. The 802.11 Working Group had examined 15 proposals submitted in July 2005, finally deciding to merge two into a joint proposal, with approval of the amendment expected to come in 2008. Rayment, who was part of the working group, is unsure of the cost benefits that the standard will bring, but is positive about the wide-sweeping implications of interoperability in all areas of the wireless mesh sector. "It’s more for a functionality enriching kind of exercise, but always with an eye to interop, that’s why it’s being standardized," he says. Vann Hasty, director of technology standards lead for Motorola Inc.’s mesh product group, adds, "Motorola is interested in applying mesh technology and Wi-Fi across a lot of different marketplaces. Because of that, standardization and the kind of interop that 802.11s is going to bring will help us drive that point home across lots of different markets, so it’s very important to us." In the public safety mesh network marketplace, where Motorola has a strong presence, interoperability will further enable first responders to maintain a connection to the closest network. But according to Hasty, one of the biggest benefits of vendor interop will be inside the home. He says that the typical 2500-square-foot home is not well-covered by a single access point, and indoor mesh networks will provide richer service. "The ability to take the single cable drop or DSL drop and extend the reach of it beyond the first one or two adjacent rooms in the home to multiple rooms, eliminating the dark coverage areas, is a pretty strong consumer electronics play," says Hasty. BelAir’s Rayment emphasizes this point as well. In the residential space, he sees consumers being able to buy a mesh Wi-Fi-enabled high-definition television set from one electronics company, a personal video recorder from another, and a DVD player from a third company, with all devices being able to mesh together. "Obviously in that environment interop and plug and play is really important," he says. "You’re not going to fool around with configuration sets, you’re going to take it out of the box and expect it to work." Additionally, the electronics themselves could each act as node in the mesh network, which would further Hasty’s point of extending the network throughout the home. However, interoperability may have little impact in the traditional mesh network space. Rayment says municipal Wi-Fi deployments could involve two vendors, with each covering half of one city, but he doesn’t know if multiple vendor equipment will ever significantly mesh together to cover one area. Certainly BelAir hasn’t seen a lot of talk about this from its customers yet, but he can’t predict how it will unfold. Adds Hasty: "In public safety, I really don’t know how much vendor interop we’re going to see, but at least it opens up the possibility of it." He believes there will be instances of integrators deploying a mesh network with multiple vendors, but doesn’t see it developing into an industry-wide trend. "I think it’s going to be on a case-by-case basis," he continues. "But 11s certainly provides that opportunity to open the door to competition." Bilel Jamoussi, director of strategic standards in Nortel’s chief research office, believes the standard will bring competitive benefits. "Customers these days always demand two vendors for any solution, so that’s something that most vendors are used to and expect," he says. "To have a healthy market you need to at least have a couple of providers of the solution and that opens up the competition obviously." As an example, Jamoussi says if Nortel needs certain chips to comply with the 802.11s ecosystem, they’ll be able to choose from multiple vendors because of the standard, with the inherent cost savings from competition eventually benefiting the customer. Hasty agrees, adding that more power will be put in the hands of the integrators if they can potentially mix equipment from different vendors within a network. And while this could translate to cost savings, he says that one of the greatest financial benefits of the standard is it really doesn’t cost anything to add it to access point designs. "At the moment, the way the draft existed, it’s pretty flexible and pretty software oriented," he says. "The benefit is you get all of those characteristics of the range extension. You get, in some instances, higher throughput, and I get it all for very little additive cost." Although the standard is set to be approved in July 2008, vendors will be able to work towards compliance well in advance. Hasty and Jamoussi both say they expect some evolution and revisions over the next year, but Rayment says vendors will have a substantial grace period in which to comply. "Obviously you can back up from quite a bit in terms of when you could implement and have a very high degree of confidence that you’re going to be compliant with the standard," says Rayment. "I’d say that during the last year of the process not a lot usually changes in the contents." And looking at the proposed standard now, BelAir feels it’s in pretty good shape to comply by 2008, as Rayment says the company already implements many of the attributes that are in 802.11s. An additional benefit of the standard, according to Rayment, is that it should neutralize a lot of hype in the industry about fancy routing algorithms and discovery algorithms, which he doesn’t feel make that big of a difference. With the standard in place, the discussion will be limited to whether a vendor’s algorithms are .11s compliant or not. Rayment won’t speculate on what difficulties other vendors might have with becoming compliant, saying only that each one will have its own set of challenges as they move forward. As well, Hasty says it’s too early to say what the troubles will be in adhering to the standard, particularly since it’s not quite solid yet. All three of the vendors were active members in the 802.11s Working Group and will continue to play a role in the process right through to ratification of the standard. Jamoussi added that Nortel wants to continue to shepherd the draft to ensure it represents what Nortel’s customers are asking for, and "that it will truly allow for interoperability." He continues: "I think the process the IEEE has is fairly open on the one hand, but fairly elaborate to make sure what comes out at the end of the day is a sound and technically solid specification."

Equipment interoperability key benefit of 802.11s standard

News | May 18, 2006

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