Tom's Hardware > Forum > Wireless Networking > Wireless General Discussions > Is a WDS bridge like an Ethernet switch...
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Anonymous   09-22-2004 at 03:53:31 PM

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....in that it has an internal MAC table and transmits wirelessly
only those packets whose destination MAC addresses are on the
other side of the wireless link?

Or is it more like an Ethernet hub, transmitting wirelessly all
packets that it sees on its LAN port?

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Anonymous   09-22-2004 at 11:22:57 PM
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i dunno
it speaks/listens per client,,, if there's no client it has no one to talk
with it shuts up

"c hore" <carhore@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:ca167c61.0409220853.431536a9@posting.google.com...
> ...in that it has an internal MAC table and transmits wirelessly
> only those packets whose destination MAC addresses are on the
> other side of the wireless link?
>
> Or is it more like an Ethernet hub, transmitting wirelessly all
> packets that it sees on its LAN port?

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Anonymous   09-23-2004 at 09:50:49 AM
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Archived from groups: alt.internet.wireless (More info?)

 

On 22 Sep 2004 09:53:31 -0700, carhore@yahoo.com (c hore) wrote:

>...in that it has an internal MAC table and transmits wirelessly
>only those packets whose destination MAC addresses are on the
>other side of the wireless link?

You're mixing up two technologies and acronyms.
A bridge is a two port switch. A switch is a bridge with more than
two ports. A wireless bridge acts like a two port switch, where it
builds a MAC address to port table and only passes packets that go to
the other ports.

>Or is it more like an Ethernet hub, transmitting wirelessly all
>packets that it sees on its LAN port?

A hub is officially known as an ethernet "repeater". Such a best
would be terribly inefficient when used with wireless. Methinks there
may be some confusion as to the use of the word "repeater". There's
no way to run a wireless repeater as a "hub" because there's no way to
simultaneously transmit unicast packets to everyone at the same time,
the way an ethernet hub does it.

For WDS (wireless distribution something), it acts as a store and
forward repeater. The WDS bridge builds a similar MAC address table
and only sends packets to the wireless access points that are
connected to the destination MAC address device. Effectively WDS is
nothing more than an extremely messy protocol to distribute MAC
bridging address tables between access points. It's not part of IEEE
802.11 or the FCC Part 15 rules.

These explain it fairly well.
http://www.proxim.com/support/techbulletins/TB-046.pdf
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/Sec [...] -page1.php


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Anonymous   09-24-2004 at 02:41:32 PM
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Archived from groups: alt.internet.wireless (More info?)

 

Jeff Liebermann wrote:
> For WDS (wireless distribution something), it acts as a store and
> forward repeater. The WDS bridge builds a similar MAC address table
> and only sends packets to the wireless access points that are
> connected to the destination MAC address device. Effectively WDS is
> nothing more than an extremely messy protocol to distribute MAC
> bridging address tables between access points. It's not part of IEEE
> 802.11 or the FCC Part 15 rules.
>
> These explain it fairly well.
> http://www.proxim.com/support/techbulletins/TB-046.pdf
> http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/Sec [...] -page1.php

Thanks for that clarification and the helpful links. So I was mistaken
then. I was under impression that in a LAN-to-LAN wireless link using
a pair of WDS bridges, you had to interpose a switch on at least
one side to avoid traffic that was purely local to one side
from crossing the bridge and polluting/consuming bandwidth on
the other side. I can't remember where/how I got this
impression.

If WDS is not part of the IEEE standard, I guess that explains why
an AP with WDS will not necessarily bridge with the
AP with WDS of a different manufacturer.

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