Archived from groups: comp.dcom.voice-over-ip (
More info?)
Kyler Laird <Kyler@news.Lairds.org> writes:
> "Wolfgang S. Rupprecht" <wolfgang+gnus20040903T115628@dailyplanet.dontspam.wsrcc.com> writes:
> We'll see. I'm just starting to work on it and it's only 11 days
> away.
>
http://www.agry.purdue.edu/FieldDay/
> I'm trying to bite off enough to be interesting but not so much
> that I end up having to deal with lots of extra equipment, writing
> software from scratch, bailing at the last minute, ...
There is nothing like a bit of pressure for getting the creative
juices flowing. ;-)
> >I can call between my Grandstreams by dialing the IP address
> >directly.
>
> Ah ha! That would be *wonderful*. Any idea if that's supported
> on Cisco 7940s?
Sorry, I don't know much about the Ciscos. They were always way too
rich for my blood. (The ones I looked at were $350 w/o SIP firmware.)
> It *is* easy. Well, for me, after playing with it for a long time
> it's easy. I'm using OLSR. There's even an OpenWRT package for
> it. I set it up last night with five devices (including my WRT in
> my car in the driveway) and walked around the neighborhood with my
> pen tablet. Geeky fun!
If the connectivity between nodes is generally good, you should be ok.
What the MIT folks found is that the nodes in their northern Cambridge
mesh had a tendency to form different BSSID networks even though their
SSID's were set to the same value.
from: grid:bac-meng.pdf p.48
BSSID partitioning
When 802.11 interfaces are put into Ad Hoc mode, they go through
a somewhat complicated pro cedure to join what is known as a Basic
Service Set, or BSS [11]. A BSS is a kind of virtual network; even
if two different no des are op erating on the same channel, they
will not "see" each other's packets unless they are in the same
BSS. Basic Service Sets are identified by a 6-byte numb er known
as the Basic Service Set ID, or BSSID, which is transmitted in the
header of every 802.11 frame. When an 802.11b adapter enters Ad
Ho c mo de, it is configured with a Service Set ID (SSID), which
is a string that is intended to identify the network it wishes to
join. The adapter then scans through all of the 802.11b channels,
listening for b eacons sent by other no des. Beacons contain,
among other things, the SSID and BSSID b eing used by the sending
no de. If the adapter hears a beacon containing the SSID that
matches its own, then it joins this existing Basic Service Set by
setting its own BSSID to the one received in the beacon.
If the adapter does not receive any b eacons with a matching SSID
within a certain period of time, it decides that no Basic Service
Set currently exists with its SSID. In this case, it sets up
itself as a new Basic Service Set by selecting a random BSSID and
using that for all of its traffic. Any other no des using the same
SSID which start up in range of this no de will hear its beacons
and configure themselves to use its BSSID.
This creates a serious problem for an Ad Ho c network. Namely, if
two no des start up at different times and are not within radio
range of each other, they will start with different BSSIDs and b e
on different logical networks, despite b oth having the same
SSID. Because 802.11 adapters ignore all frames whose BSSID do es
not match their own, this creates a partition in the network and
prevents all of the nodes from being able to communicate
properly. Ideally, it would be possible to set the BSSID
directly to ensure that a given set of nodes would all be able
to communicate. Unfortunately, this is not possible using 802.11b
hardware.
> Thank you for the info!
My pleasure!
-wolfgang
--
Wolfgang S. Rupprecht
http://www.wsrcc.com/wolfgang/