Network Infrastructure, Wireless Technology

EDUCAUSE Evolving Technologies Committee

Charles Bartel, Carnegie Mellon University
Emilio DiLorenzo, Rochester Institute of Technology
November 2003

Introduction
Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) are being deployed in higher education enterprises all over the
world. Institutes are recognizing the value of wireless networks and are using this technology in different
ways. Whether to attract students, be more productive and efficient, (anywhere, anytime access), or just
because its cool and everyone else is doing it, wireless technology has advanced tremendously in recent
years.
The media has often portrayed wireless technology as the panacea for the on-going challenge of keeping
users connected to the Institutes enterprise network and information resources without hampering
productivity. Cultural and social changes are driving more and more people to work on the go or from
home. These changes require the enterprise IT infrastructure to support remote and mobile users.
Approval of the IEEE 802.11 standard for WLANs and rapid progress made toward higher data rates have
put the promise of truly mobile computing within reach. While LANs have been a mainstream technology
for at least 15 years, WLANs are uncharted territory for most network professionals. There still remain some
unanswered questions in this evolution of WLANs technology.
In this document we will examine all aspects of WLANs and hopefully in the end you will have a better
appreciation of the power of this technology and the tremendous impacts it will have on teaching and
learning and how we interact with society in the 21
st
century.
What Is 802.11 Wireless Networking?
Before we dive into describing what exactly is 802.11, lets briefly talk about some high level concepts on
how WLANs operate. WLANs use electromagnetic waves to transmit data without physical connection
between Access Points (AP) and end users. APs are the components that act as a bridge between the
wired network and the WLAN end users. WLANs are a shared media technology, and as such, users will
be contending for bandwidth. An example might be a single user downloading a large file or opening up a
large e-mail attachment that will definitely impact the overall performance.
The range of the APs is directly proportional to speed. As distance between APs and users increases the
speed will decrease. Furthermore, we also need to consider the environment around us. For example,
building materials, floor plans, and types of other interfering devices can significantly decrease availability
and data rates.
WLANs transmit data radio waves. Radio waves are transported by Spread-Spectrum Technology (SST).
The advantage of this is that that communication is tolerant of some noise and interference. It also allows
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many users to share a common frequency band, which in turns means, that simultaneous transmission
waves can travel on a single frequency.
Lastly, wireless adaptors, which are either inserted or already built into laptops, handheld devices and other
mobile products, are assigned a Media Access Control (MAC) address that is recognized by the APs. The
MAC controls the communications access between the users device and the APs.
What Are The Wireless Data Options?
Depending on your geographic location you may have a glut of wireless data options, or you may have the
opportunity to establish a wireless presence in your community.

802.11b is the current common denominator in terms of wireless LANs. It operates at 2.4 GHz and
operates in the United States as part of the unlicensed ISM band. It provides theoretical data rates
of 11Mbps, but in practice data throughput is 5Mbps or lower depending on a number of factors.
While there are 11 slices of the spectrum (channels) available for use, because of frequency
overlap, there are actually only 3 to 4 channels that can be used across the 11-channel spread.

802.11b can be used for ad hoc networking (peer to peer), enterprise networking (access points
deployed to cover a lab, a building or a campus) or to establish point-to-point links for
interconnection of networks.

802.11a is an approved standard that operates in a different radio range (5 GHz) than 802.11b and
offers higher theoretical and actual data speeds than 802.11b (54Mbps theoretical, roughly
25Mbps actual). It operates under three bands of spectrum and can provide up to 12 non-
interfering channels (although there is still a need to provide some channel separation in the design
of an 802.11a wireless LAN). It is widely viewed as one successor to the very pervasive 802.11b.

802.11g is an approved standard that uses the same radio spectrum as 802.11b, but operates at
speeds similar to 802.11a. One of the pros is that because it uses the same radio spectrum, it is
possible that devices using 11g will be able to fall-back to using 11b in the presence of an 11b
only wireless LAN. A con is that 11 g is still restricted to the same 3 to 4 channels for design, and it
may be difficult to design a high bandwidth 11g network without a significant amount of overlapping
(interfering) adjacent channels. A further complication is that in the current implementation of the
specification, 11g clients slow down to 11b client speeds (11Mbps or less) if an 11g network
supports both 11b and 11g clients.

Bluetooth is more geared as a PAN (Personal Area Network) than as a LAN. It is a standard in
the sense of a large number of technology companies have come together to develop the
specification for devices that will use Bluetooth to inter-communicate with each other. Bluetooth
uses the same unlicensed radio spectrum as 802.11b (and g) and as such there is a potential that
the presence of Bluetooth and 11b devices in the same area will interfere with each other. There is
an IEEE standard (802.15) that is based on the Bluetooth specification and there are efforts within
the IEEE 802 working groups to have 11b(g) and 15 devices interoperate in the same radio space.
While these efforts may someday bear fruit, the current devices now flooding the market will not
necessarily provide a comfortable level of cohabitation of the radio spectrum.

Cellular and 3G services- these are wireless data services being offered or talked about by
primarily the various cellular providers (Verizon, Sprint, AT&T). For the most part, the notion is to
carry data over the same radio spectrum as a cellular call, but to use different schemes to increase
the data throughput. For example, Verizon is offering Express Network with a max throughput of
144Kbps and an average speed of 40-60Kbps. While this speed is perhaps double or triple
previous schemes and rivals typical dial-up modem speeds, it is slow compared to wireless LAN
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speeds. There are even higher bandwidth services being planned by many of these same cellular
providers.

Others (Infrared, laser, microwave)- There are wireless options ranging from low-speed (infrared)
to very high speed (155Mbps and beyond) lasers that also fall under the wireless data umbrella.
These products are more typically used for establishing point-to-point links. There are some
emerging products (Canopy from Motorola for example) that can provide point to multipoint service
at 10Mbps (and beyond) speeds of relatively long distances. There is a new wireless wide area
standard being developed (IEEE 802.16) that will allow high speed point to point or point to multi-
point connections. This technology is being viewed as a wireless replacement or enhancement for
MANs (Metropolitan Area Networks) like DSL or Cable Modem.

There are also some excellent web sites that provide a plethora of information:

1. www.ieee.org - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
2. www.fcc.gov - Federal Communications Commission
3. www.wirelessethernet.org - Wi Fi Alliance
4. www.etsi.org - European Telecommunications Standards Institute

Why Is Wireless Networking Important To Higher Education?
In a nutshell wireless networking is important because it is convenient. Students are increasingly mobile in
their communication styles and activities, and to extend a campus network without wires allows for new
cultures of learning too form. Once the network is everywhere, learning will be untethered about the
campus.

Wireless networking also gives universities a cost effective way to extend the campus network to previously
unwirable locations, or quickly provide a network in a space that has none. Higher education Institutions
are not immune by todays economic challenges. IT budgets are being cut as much as 25% or more, not to
mention that capital expenditures are non existent or being put off indefinitely. WLANs give Institutions a
means of progressing their IT infrastructure to support the mission of teaching and learning in a fairly
inexpensive way.

What Are The Implementation Challenges?
Perhaps security is the biggest challenge and one that has received the most publicity. WLANs
specifications are based on the assumption that all who access the WLANs are trusted users. The WLAN
specifications need to include security in order to make it an enterprise service. Malicious intruders can
penetrate several kinds of attacks in a WLAN (Sniffing, Spoofing, Jamming, Denial of Service attacks).
Anyone of these attacks could turn out to be a major catastrophe for Institutions, both on teaching and
learning and bad publicity.

The fact that there is no wire to be tapped leads us to two primary security issues. The first is that all
transmissions may be monitored by anyone in reception range, these are the attacks listed above. The
second is that of access. Assume that one would like to grant access to the network to only certain
individuals. The challenge is how to accomplish this for a user that is not physically attached to a switched
point on the network, but rather on a shared bus that is roaming around campus.

The second challenge, but less limited is roaming. Roaming issues are present in some 802.11 wireless
networks. In a cellular network, as one moves between cells, a handoff takes place, and calls survive the
transition between cellular towers and networks. However, since the IEEE did not initially specify a standard
for the handoff protocol, vendors developed their own methods for dealing with this issue. The end result is
that roaming is a problem for some of todays wireless networks, due to vendor interoperability issues. Even
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with a homogeneous deployment of equipment from one manufacturer, roaming will only work when there
is a single IP subnet for a given wireless network. This is primarily due to the fact that all IP connections
depend on a given host keeping the same address for the duration of a connection. If a wireless client
roams, and obtains a new IP address in the process, connections will be dropped.

Seamless roaming dictates a large, flat layer-2 network, and issues with the scalability of large flat networks
are well known (this is one of the reasons we have the word router in our telecom dictionaries). Broadcast
storms are one of the primary concerns, as a large flat network grows, which in turn means significant down
time to users.

Another challenge is the behavior of radio signals on you campus and the potential interferers of
those signals. Wireless LANs use radio as the communications medium and in fact use unlicensed
radio spectrum that they cohabitate with many devices. Some devices like 2.4GHz cordless phones
can cause major problems with Wi-Fi devices in the area. Bluetooth devices are becoming more
pervasive and these too can interfere with 802.11b and g Wi-Fi networks. Also in this area, the
reflection or absorption of radio signals by the materials used in the construction of a building can
cause problems or anomalies in coverage. As a rule of thumb, if a material absorbs sound waves for
acoustic insulation of a space, it will likely absorb radio waves as well.

The above can translate into the need for additional access points to cover a given space and
ultimately this translates into higher costs for deployment.

Lastly we cannot forget the cultural and social issues that could present themselves as challenges. While
the network is generally viewed as a tool in the educational community, it can also be a distraction to some
students. The technological problem presented by this is how to allow faculty in a given classroom control
over what students may do on the wireless network. Immediately we think about students cheating, making
social plans after class, or just not paying attention because there to busy surfing the net.

Who Are The Major Vendors?
In terms of wireless LANS, the IEEE is the major standards body with the FCC governing the radio
spectrum in the United States. Local regulatory agencies worldwide govern the radio spectrum
(and its usage) in different ways.

Depending on which version of wireless data you are considering the major players may be
different.

Cellular providers are likely to be your 3G providers (Verizon, Sprint, AT&T,).

Most wired network companies now offer 802.11b wireless solutions as part of their product line
(Cisco, Nortel, 3Com, Enterasys and Extreme to name a few).

There are a few companies that are almost exclusively fixed on wireless data solutions. Proxim is a
company that offers a full spectrum of wireless data solutions. Also, there are a number emerging
switched wireless vendors that are for the most part exclusively wireless LAN vendors, Airespace, Airflow,
Aruba Networks, Chantry Networks, Symbol Technologies and Trapeze Networks to name a few.

What Are The Rules of Thumb For Judging Among Them?
This is a question that many vendors can debate about for hours on end, my wireless is better that your
wireless scenarios. I like to keep things very simple and stick to facts, not marketing or media hype. After
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all if an implementation fails or service is bad who do you think the Administration will point the finger at? I
can safely say that it wont be the vendor. Here are some key points to consider in the WLANs marketplace:

Longevity of the vendor (are they going to survive this economy and do they have the vision and
strategy to get there?)
Throughput and scalability of the vendors solution. Typically enterprise level vendors have these
issues well under control.
Up-gradability. Since this is a fast developing technology can the vendor upgrade their hardware
with new software to provide new features?
Support of external antennas
Transmit power levels
Ease of configuration and management
Interoperability in a non-homogenous environment (especially in a higher education environment)

How Should We Proceed?
Proceeding with a deployment of WLANs based on the 802.11b specification will not be a mistake. It is
important that Institutions understand and answer a few hard questions:

What am I trying to achieve with WLANs?
What is the value proposition for doing this?
Is my infrastructure ready to accept WLANs?
Can I support this new service?
Can I accept the inherent risks of todays WLANs?

Of course there are many more questions to answer, the important point to make is that the WLANs market
is constantly evolving. As the industry matures, we will see more and more implementations of WLANs in
the enterprise.

When Will Wireless Become Essential On Campuses
Today. Your peer institutions are using it as a selling point for students to try and gain some competitive
edge that distinguishes them from other Institutions. Student expectations are high, especially on
technological campuses. However, essential is not the same thing as ubiquitous. It will take time for us to
determine if this technology is going to be required everywhere on campus.

How Is The Industry Evolving?
With current trends clearly indicating a growing acceptance and adoption of WLAN/s in the enterprise and
coupled with the fact that the industry is trying hard to provide multiple options and ratify specifications,
WLANs is evolving at warp speed. In fact, many leading experts and colleagues are not referring to
WLANs but as Mobile Computing. The reason is simple, your cell phone, your PDA, your car that you
drive and many other devices can and are being considered wireless in nature. So referring to wireless as
networks is already becoming a dinosaur and true Mobile Computing is taking over.

So, lets take a quick look at how the industry is really evolving from a technical, management and security
standpoint:

There are emerging approaches to try to increase the available bandwidth within Wi-Fi networks.
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These have been nick-named Switched wireless to distinguish from the current standards-based shared-
radio 802.11wireless networks.

Standards-Based Wi-Fi networks use intelligent/smart/heavy Access Points (APs) wired to wireless
bridge/router/gateway to connect wireless users to campus wired networks. Switched wireless LANs use
dumb/lite APs (essentially a radio and NIC) connected to a central device. The central device acts as the
controller of the dumb APs.

There are a number of non-standards bases approached to provide a switched solution. Some vendors
use tunable antennas and/or variable RF power levels to adjust the coverage pattern of the AP. Some have
coverage-prediction capabilities to assist in WLAN design and implementation. Some vendors have built-in
the management functionality of middle-boxes (ReefEdge, Vernier, BlueSocket) into their control devices

Players in the space include: Airespace, Airflow, Aruba Networks, Chantry Networks, Cisco, Extreme
Networks, Foundry Networks, Legra Systems, Nortel Networks, Proxim, Symbol Technologies and Trapeze
Networks to name a few.

Some caveats to consider if you are looking at these products:

While they all support IEEE 802.11standards-based (Wi-Fi) clients, most vendors use proprietary
approaches for RF management.

Presently there is no standard for this area of WLANs (no interoperability between vendor products)
Most vendors only support 802.11b (11Mbps) clients (not 11g or 11a 54Mbps clients).

As mentioned earlier, the IEEE standards are moving to address some of the issues with respect to
bandwidth. 802.11a and 802.11g are both targeting higher bandwidths (54Mbps/sec speeds). The IEEE is
also starting to address the concept of Quality of Service (QOS) for WLANs. Without a major breakthrough
speeds are not likely to go much higher than 54Mbps/sec. Therefore, IEEE and vendors alike will need to
address and deliver QOS issues needed for advancing reliable amounts of bandwidth to applications that
will require it (i.e. 802.11b, VOIP phones). The IEEE is also working on extending their standards to
implement multi-vendor roaming interoperability. Finally most importantly efforts are being made towards
advanced security standards that are causing IT professionals sleepless nights.

What Are The Issues To Be Addressed?
When talking to anyone in the IT field, rest assured that if they say everything is working fine and there are
no issues, they are lying. In a nutshell I see three key issues with WLANs that need to be addressed.

Security, security, security. As mentioned throughout this document security is one of the main
considerations when contemplating WLANs. Much effort is underway to offer advanced security, however
were not there yet. There are tactical solutions that users can put in place. One of those solutions is using
Virtual Private Network (VPN) to force users to authenticate and most importantly create an encrypted
tunnel from the AP to the user. The issue around VPN is that depending on the vendor you implement for
VPN you may end up needing to install client software, which will cause management and licensing issues.
A second tactical solution might be to use your vendors proprietary security if you are installing a single
vendor solution, including using the vendors wireless adaptors. For example, if you have installed a full
Cisco wireless infrastructure, you have the option of using Ciscos own security methods incorporated into
their products. However, you can only take advantage of this feature if you are using Ciscos wireless
adaptors. Any other vendors adaptors will not be able to take advantage of Ciscos security.

There are a number of efforts in the area of security and a number of ways to secure a Wi-Fi network.
There is an alphabet soup of options (WEP, TKIP, EAP, LEAP, PEAP, IEEE 802.11i, IEEE 802.1x,
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VPNs). Given the limited scope of this whitepaper, we will refer the reader to an excellent whitepaper that
Dell has written on the subject: http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/vectors/wireless_security.pdf

A user of a WLAN should not experience roaming issues due to the fact that they changed location.
Obviously this completely defeats the purpose of being mobile. All APs allow for roaming within the same
subnet. In a perfect world, products should be able to roam multiple subnets with an enterprise WLAN. As
with security some vendors have their own proprietary methods for handling roaming issues.

Finally Quality of Service versus more bandwidth. This pervasive debate will be brought down to the
wireless level, where QOS will likely win due to the fact that higher speeds will create distance limitations
that cant be overcome by replacing the cabling. The WiFi Alliance has a subcommittee working on and
exploring an adaptable industry standard.

Where Are The Likely Impacts In The Coming One To Three Years?
In the near term, demand for WLANs will continue to grow and be implemented in additional areas that
were once not thought of. Bandwidth usage will lead to redesigns of existing WLANs. These redesigns
may have a negative impact on an enterprises ability to support seamless roaming. As time goes on,
additional features and/or functionality may require upgrades of the underlying AP hardware supporting
your WLAN. In short, expect to allocate more resources to supporting your WLAN as it grows. As with all
technologies, as the usage pushes the limit of the technology unforeseen problems will arise.

Conclusion
With the alphabet soup of wireless standards and protocols and the appearance that wireless LANs are still
an immature technology given the state of flux within the standards and vendor implementations, one could
assume that it is still best to sit back and wait for the dust to settle. Unfortunately, given the apparent
commoditization and consumerization of wireless gear campus IT professional are facing the situation that
wireless LANs will show up on their campuses. They now have the choice of deploying them in as
structured way as possible as a central service, or watch wireless LANs spring up like weeds in an
unstructured and insecure way.

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Related Higher Education Projects
Wireless Andrew- Carnegie Mellon University
www.cmu.edu/computing/wireless
Mobile Computing- Rochester Institute of Technology
http://www.rit.edu/~wwwits/services/mobile_computing
Kiewit Wireless- Dartmouth College
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~campus/
DragonFly-Drexel University
http://inside.drexel.edu/networking/wireless/
Nomad- University of Tennessee Knoxville
http://wireless.utk.edu/
Wireless LAN Pilot - Virginia Tech
http://www.cns.vt.edu/html/wireless/wlan/index.html
University of Minnesota Duluth
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/computing/access.html
Related EDUCAUSE2003 Sessions
Seminar 08F - Implementing a Campus-Wide Wireless LAN: Considerations and Practices
PLEASE NOTE: Separate registration and fee is required to attend this seminar.
8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. Tuesday
Network Infrastructure and Equipment, Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN)
Class on the Go: Want Fries with That?
11:40 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. Wednesday
Distributed Learning, Handheld Computers, Portals, Wireless Technology
Large-Scale Deployment of a Secure Wireless Network
3:50 p.m. - 4:40 p.m. Wednesday
Network Security and Applications, Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN)
No More "Online": Wireless to the Distance Learner
4:55 p.m. - 6:10 p.m. Wednesday
Distance Education, Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN), Wireless Technology
Wireless Local Area Networking
4:55 p.m. - 6:10 p.m. Wednesday
Network Infrastructure and Equipment, Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN)
Cutting the Cord: Wireless Networking Made Hard
EDUCAUSE EVOLVING TECHNOLOGIES COMMITTEE, OVERVIEW OF WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY, 10/21/2003
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8:10 a.m. - 9:00 a.m. Thursday
Network Infrastructure and Equipment, Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN), Wireless
Technology
Network Management
4:55 p.m. - 6:10 p.m. Thursday
Network Management, Network Security and Applications, Wireless Technology
Wireless Campus Networking
4:55 p.m. - 6:10 p.m. Thursday
Network Infrastructure and Equipment, Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN)