IEEE 802.11 in the Large: Observations at an IETF Meeting
Andre G. Forte, Sangho Shin, Henning G. Schulzrinne · 2008
We observed wireless network traffic at the 65th IETF Meeting in Dallas, Texas in March of 2006, attended by approximately 1200 engineers. The event was supported by a very large number of 802.11a and 802.11b access points, often seeing hundreds of simultaneous users. We were particularly interested in the stability of wireless connectivity, load balancing and loss behavior, rather than just traffic.We observed distinct differences among client implementations and saw a number of factors that made the overall system less than optimal, pointing to the need for better design tools and automated adaptation mechanisms.