Findings on the suitability of 802.11 for highly mobile broadband networks

As the world becomes increasingly dependent on dynamic and up-to-the-moment information, we recognize that broadband networks must be able to convey this information timely and wirelessly, to and from users in motion. Varieties of 802.11 compliant equipment and other types of broadband wireless equipment have been proposed for, and in some areas, being used to meet this need. There have been questions about the suitability of 802.11-based equipment for broadband networks that have to operate at vehicular speeds. Prior literature in the field has illustrated some of the problems, but is generally short on specific results from testing. At our facility, we have a wireless networking testbed that includes 802.11-based equipment, as well as equipment supporting other protocols. We conducted mobile connectivity and throughput experiments at different rates of speed to examine how 802.11-based equipment performs in the mobile broadband wireless network role. We also conducted the same experiments using Motorola´s Mesh-Enabled Architecture. This paper presents those results. After summarizing the previous work by others in this area, we describe the layout of the wireless testbed, the structure of the experiments and how the experiments were conducted. Next, we present and analyze the results of the experiments, and finally offer our conclusions.