WaveLAN

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

WaveLAN is a trade name that describes two completely different families of wireless network solutions:

  • Pre-IEEE 802.11 WaveLAN, also called Classic WaveLAN
  • IEEE 802.11-compliant WaveLAN, also known as WaveLAN IEEE or ORiNOCO

Contents

[edit] History

WaveLAN was originally designed by NCR Corporation in 1990. When NCR was acquired by AT&T in 1991, the product name was retained, as happened later, when Lucent spun off from AT&T GIS in 1997. The technology was also sold under an OEM agreement by Epson, Hitachi,and NEC, and by DEC as the RoamAbout DS. It competed directly with Aironet's non-802.11 ARLAN lineup, which offered similar speeds, frequency ranges and hardware. Several companies also marketed wireless bridges and routers based on the WaveLAN ISA and PCMCIA cards, like the C-Spec OverLAN, KarlNet KarlBridge, Persoft Intersect Remote Bridge, and Solectek AIRLAN/Bridge Plus. Lucent's WavePoint II access point could accommodate both the classic WaveLAN PCMCIA cards as well as the WaveLAN IEEE cards.[1][2]

When the 802.11 procotol was ratified, Lucent began producing chipsets to support this new standard under the name of WaveLAN IEEE, which it later renamed to ORiNOCO. At the same time, Lucent spun off the division that produced these chipsets as Agere, which was later acquired by Proxim. Proxim later renamed its entire 802.11 wireless networking lineup to ORiNOCO, including products based on Atheros chipsets. [3]

[edit] Specifications

Classic WaveLAN operates in the 900 MHz or 2.4 GHz ISM bands. Being a proprietary pre-802.11 protocol, it is completely incompatible with the 802.11 standard.

For security, WaveLAN used a 16-bit NWID (NetWork ID), which yielded 65,536 potential combinations; the radio portion of the device could receive radio traffic tagged with another NWID, but the controller would discard the traffic. DES encryption (56-bit) was an option in some of the ISA and MCA cards and all of the WavePoint access points (the full-length ISA and MCA cards had a socket for an encryption chip, while the half-length ISA cards had solder pads for a socket which was never added). There was a large hole in the NWID security strategy, though: all WaveLAN devices utilized the same spreading code in their DSSS scheme, so a WaveLAN card in promiscuous mode and set to ignore the NWID parameter could sniff any WaveLAN radio traffic it encountered.

The ISA and MCA cards were based on the Intel 82586 Ethernet MAC controller, which was a commonly used controller in its time and was found in many ISA and MCA Ethernet cards, such as the Intel EtherExpress 16 and the 3COM 3C523. The radio modem section was hidden from the OS, thus making the WaveLAN card appear to be a typical Ethernet card, with the radio-specific features taken care of behind the scenes.[4]

While the 900 MHz models and the early 2.4 GHz models were fixed in frequency, the later 2.4 GHz cards as well as some 2.4 GHz WavePoint access points had a range of ten possible channels, depending on the country where they were sold.[5]


[edit] Official specifications

Realm Type Frequency Modulation technique Output power Maximum data rate Media Access Control Security
Worldwide 900 Mhz 915 MHz DSSS/DQPSK 250 mW 2 Mbps CSMA/CA 16-bit network ID and optional DES encryption
US and Canada 2.4 GHz 2.412 GHz, 2.422 GHz, 2.432 GHz, 2.442 GHz, 2.452 GHz, 2.462 GHz DSSS/DQPSK 32 mW 2 Mbps CSMA/CA 16-bit network ID and optional DES encryption
Europe (except France) 2.4 GHz 2.422 GHz, 2.425 GHz, 2.4305 GHz, 2.432 GHz, 2.442 GHz, 2.452 GHz, 2.460 GHz, 2.462 GHz DSSS/DQPSK 32 mW 2 Mbps CSMA/CA 16-bit network ID and optional DES encryption
France 2.4 GHz 2.460 GHz and 2.462 GHz DSSS/DQPSK 32 mW 2 Mbps CSMA/CA 16-bit network ID and optional DES encryption
Australia 2.4 GHz 2.422 GHz, 2.425 GHz, 2.432 GHz, 2.442 GHz DSSS/DQPSK 32 mW 2 Mbps CSMA/CA 16-bit network ID and optional DES encryption
Japan 2.4 GHz 2.484 GHz DSSS/DQPSK 32 mW 2 Mbps CSMA/CA 16-bit network ID and optional DES encryption

[edit] Support

[edit] Officially released drivers

[edit] Volunteer-developed drivers

Linux has included support for ISA Classic WaveLAN cards since the 2.0.37 kernel, while full support for the PCMCIA Classic WaveLAN cards came later. Status of support for MCA Classic Wavelan cards is unknown.[7][8]

FreeBSD version 2.2.1-up[9] and the Mach4 kernel[10] have had native support for the ISA Classic WaveLAN cards for several years. OpenBSD[11] and NetBSD[12] do not natively support any of the Classic WaveLAN cards.

Several open-source projects, such as NdisWrapper and Project Evil, currently exist that allow the use of NDIS drivers via a "wrapper". This allows non-Windows OS' to utilize the near-universal nature of drivers written for the Windows platform to the benefit of other operating systems, such as Linux, FreeBSD, and ZETA.

[edit] Examples

Classic WaveLAN technology was available for different interfaces:

  • Full-length ISA card - 915 MHz, F connector, RG-59/U antenna cable. NCR part number 601-0068991. NCR 008-0126998 HOLI (HOst Lan Interface), NCR 008-0126999 Icarus (or NCR 008-0127211 Daedalus), and Intel N82586 chips.

Image:Wavelan_Full_ISA_915.jpg

  • Half-length ISA card - 915 MHz, SMB connector. NCR 008-0126998 HOLI, and Intel N82586 chips. AT&T part number 3399-K602.

Image:Wavelan_Half_ISA_915.jpg

  • Full-length ISA card - 2.4 GHz, fixed frequency
  • Half-length ISA card - 2.4 GHz, selectable frequency
  • Full-length MCA card - 915 MHz, F connector
  • PCMCIA card - 915 MHz, large external antenna dongle
  • PCMCIA card - 2.4 GHz, selectable frequency, large external antenna dongle

[edit] Citations

  1. ^ History of Wavelan by person currently maintaining Linux WaveLAN drivers. Retrieved on November 29, 2006.
  2. ^ History of Wavelan. Retrieved on November 29, 2006.
  3. ^ History of WaveLAN IEEE. Retrieved on November 29, 2006.
  4. ^ Tech notes on the WL4 WaveLAN driver. Retrieved on November 29, 2006.
  5. ^ Compressed version of Wavepoint manual in PS format. Retrieved on November 29, 2006.
  6. ^ NCR's notes on the Version 1.06 MC card drivers. Retrieved on November 29, 2006.
  7. ^ Home page of person currently maintaining Linux drivers for WaveLAN ISA. Retrieved on November 29, 2006.
  8. ^ Home page of person currently maintaining Linux drivers for WaveLAN PCMCIA. Retrieved on November 29, 2006.
  9. ^ Hardware compatibility list of FreeBSD. Retrieved on November 29, 2006.
  10. ^ Hardware compatibility list for the Mach 4 kernel. Retrieved on November 29, 2006.
  11. ^ Hardware compatibility list for OpenBSD. Retrieved on November 29, 2006.
  12. ^ Hardware compatibility list for NetBSD. Retrieved on November 29, 2006.

[edit] References

  • NCR WaveLAN PC-AT Installation and Operations manual, part number ST-2119-09, revision number 008-0127167 Rev. B, copyright 1990,1991 by NCR Corporation.

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../w/a/v/WaveLAN_1831.html"