Sunday, September 13, 2009

802.11n now ratified!

The IEEE Standards Board recently ratified the 802.11n amendment to the 802.11 standard. This marks the final approval of a fairly long process. Of course many companies have been deploying 802.11n networks over the past couple years, and the Wi-Fi Alliance has already certified numerous products based on Draft 2 of 802.11n. You can likely upgrade products previously certified by Wi-Fi (802.11n, Draft 2) products to the ratified version.

By Jim Geier, Wireless-Nets, Ltd.

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Solving Vista wireless connection problems

By Jim Geier, Wireless-Nets, Ltd.

When beginning to use Vista, you may have troubles connecting to wireless / Wi-Fi networks. A problem is that Vista implements special functions that some access points don’t recognize. Sometimes connectivity will drop intermittently, especially if a Vista-based computer is connecting to a wireless access point that is not fully Vista compatible. If you’re having connection problems, check with the access point vendor, and see if newer firmware versions for the access point include Vista support.

If updating the access point firmware doesn’t solve the problem, try disabling Vista’s autotuning (which isn’t supported by some access points):
1. Click Start.
2. Type cmd in the search box.
3. Type CTR+SHIFT+ENTER. This opens the command prompt with elevated privileges.
4. The command prompt window will appear. You’ll know this is the correct privilege level if system32 shows up in the directory path
5. Type netsh int tcp set global autotuninglevel=disable, and hit Enter
6. After the command prompt window displays OK, restart your computer, and autotuning will be disabled.

If this doesn’t help, reactivate autotuning by following the same steps as above, but type netsh int tcp set global autotuninglevel=normal in the command window.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

How to: Get the most from 802.11 multicasting

By Jim Geier, Wireless-Nets, Ltd.

Multicasting over wireless LANs can make better use of capacity for some applications, but beware of the potential issues! Learn how to best satisfy performance and battery life when using multicast applications referring to a tutorial I just posted at http://www.wireless-nets.com/resources/tutorials/802.11_multicasting.html.