Talk:Wireless distribution system

Ethernet backbone
Nowhere is mentioned that the connection between APs can be ethernet. This way WDSs main purpose is just make the roaming between APs seamless. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.135.88.89 (talk) 20:41, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Example added
I hope DoctorElmo or whoever else has stewardship of this article won't mind (or just improve it if he does), but I have added an example, created by "Super Mac Geek" @ forum.maccast.com, because in my opinion it is clearly written and adds to the understanding of the main article. Too good to be just relegated to this discussion page (where few would see it). OK? L0ngpar1sh (talk) 12:16, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Tidy up
This article is sh** and requires a decent tidy up and re-research. Appears a lot has changed since it was originally updated. 110.20.2.180 (talk) 11:40, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

disambig
"Note: this WDS is different from the WDS implementation by Cisco, which stands for Wireless Domain Services."

I think that deserves a disambiguation note at the top of the page, but don't think it should be on the wds page.

I looked all over but couldn't figure out how to do it, and couldn't find a page that used it. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:Disambiguating_pages http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Disambiguations http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Disambiguation http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Search/Disambiguating_pages None of those helped at all.

68.165.32.203 06:16, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't see a need for disambiguation here. First, the link to Cisco's Wireless Domain Services is an external link, not a wikilink; second, disambiguation is already happening at the WDS page.  I've left the clarification in, but IMHO there's no ambiguity to disambiguate. DoctorElmo 06:35, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Here's a link to Cisco's WDS FAQ - http://www.cisco.com/application/pdf/paws/65346/wds_faq.pdf - if that helps. Darr247 (talk) 13:33, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

WPA
"WPA cannot be used due to the dynamic nature of the encrypted key."

It really seems like there are a lot of opinions (!) regarding WPA and WDS. Wikipedia mentions that WPA cannot be used. Apple states in http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/airportexpressfirmware611formacosx.html that a firmware upgrade (from december 2004) solves this. http://wrt-wiki.bsr-clan.de/index.php?title=WDS_Linked_router_network currently mentions that it doesn't work between DD-WRT and Airport Express (which might be expected with different vendors). http://rgbdream.com/?p=44 mentions (a bit down) that it actually currently is working in different setups... Penguindk 17:59, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

WPA concern is old; by 2010, WDS did work with WPA.

I agree with the above, I don't understand the WPA problems, but this article was written years ago. I have Asus routers, and the settings page states that I may not be able to use WPA2-enterprise security if I mix brands, forcing me to stick with WPA2-personal. Additionally, WPA2-personal works just fine with rotating keys. 24.14.3.176 (talk) 20:03, 25 January 2013 (UTC)


 * I asked Tim Higgins (of SmallNetBuilder.com) about WDS with WPA & WPA2, and he replied that "neither [WPA nor WPA2] is supported as a standard. Implementation is product specific." NCdave (talk) 21:30, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Relay vs Remote
So the difference is that one relays data, and the other "passes on connections"? What does that mean?


 * Connections between "clients" are made using MAC addresses rather than by specifying IP assignments

Why is the word clients in quotation marks? Is this an ironic usage of the word? —Michael Z. 2007-03-03 17:28 Z 

multiradio and throughput
The article currently states, "Wireless throughput is cut approximately in half for each WDS repeating 'hop'." Www.meshdynamics.com has a bunch of glossy advertising literature that talks about using multiple radios to increase bandwidth and decrease latency and jitter. Basically, they say that with a dual radio access you point, you can have one radio handling the client services and the other radio handling the backhaul (the mesh infrastructure). If you add a third radio, you can have a full duplex connection for the backhaul (one radio transmits, the other receives).

This is clearly something that should be mentioned in the article, but I am not very knowledgable about WDS and even if I was, I wouldn't want to cite meshdynamics advertisements as if they were fact. I assume there is some real reference documentation, perhaps a published paper, which describes WDS with multiple radios. Could someone who is actually an expert in this field please edit the article so that it references that document? Thanks. 71.231.66.55 00:46, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

About the Wireless troughput cut in half for each hop, I really doubt this, this is only true if you have one hop, if you use 2 hops, then it is divided by 3, and 3 divided by 4. This makes more sense, since one radio channel is divided by time sharing between these units. Jchuit http://tarifa.sourceforge.net/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jchuit (talk • contribs) 08:35, August 26, 2007 (UTC)

Throughput
I also don't get the inversely proportional to 2^hops bit. Once it has halved, because the first hop can only receive and send half it's throughput at the same time, the second hop receives (assuming the same capacity) only half it's capacity, and so can send all of it simultaneously. Why does it not just half, once, and the whole network can send, at any large hops, half the Acess Point's capacity??? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jan.groenewald (talk • contribs) 14:27, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Implementations
This list has become unencyclopedic. Its value is debatable and I'd like to clean it up after hearing some input. E_dog95'  Hi ' 05:32, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I think that it's unnecessary to list all of these different products (especially by model name like this. However, I do think it is appropriate to at least list the companies/manufacturers that make the products and I think that specific references to unique products are important to keep.--ArtifexCrastinus (talk) 08:03, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Wi-Fi Alliance Certification
Why don't they certify it? I'd at least would like to see a citation for that. WDS isn't mentioned anywhere on Wi-Fi Alliance either. --ArtifexCrastinus (talk) 02:42, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Its implementation differs between manufacturers, so devices from different brands will not talk to each other via WDS (at least not that I've yet seen). I'm thinking the manufacturers do that on purpose as much for providing support to only their own products, as for driving sales of their own devices. The only way of which I'm aware to make different manufacturers' devices bridge via WDS is if they use a common firmware. e.g. DD-WRT. In the case of such a setup, though, none of the manufacturers would provide support (DD-WRT might, if the user has purchased the commercial version of DD-WRT). Asking for proof that WDS is not certified is effectively a logic problem (absence of evidence versus evidence of absence). You can search for "WDS" on wi-fi.org yourself (without being a member) and find that none of the 'results' actually mention WDS. Darr247 (talk) 14:35, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Cell phone applications?
Isn't there any speculation as to the feasibility of extending cell phone networks with WDS? It seems like such an obvious solution to reception problems, especially within buildings. I don't see why the network providers would have a problem with it at all. Woudn't it be an incredible boon for their customers to be happy with their current provider by allowing them to extend their coverage to their satisfaction *for them* at the customers' expense? If it's because they would no longer be able to provide accurate coverage maps, then the problem should be correctable through GPS. Even if it would greatly increase the price of such units, the demand is still great enough that the upper class and large organizations would gladly buy many units.--ArtifexCrastinus (talk) 08:19, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

See Femtocell Custom repeater setups typically run in the several hundred USD range. Plus installation. 3gstore.com is just one place that sells them... look under Antenna & Amplifiers -> Repeater Kits, there. (I don't work for 3gstore.com, but I have bought antennae and pigtails from them.) Darr247 (talk) 14:55, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Implementations at back?
Implementation sort of strikes me as something that should be at the end of the article. (maas15) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.132.221.226 (talk) 04:25, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: page moved. Rifleman 82 (talk) 01:24, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Wireless Distribution System → Wireless distribution system –

Seems to have been uppercased solely because it's commonly abbreviated as an initialism (caps by convention, of course). Per WP:CAPS and WP:TITLE: this is a generic, common noun, not a propriety or commerical term, the article title should be downcased. Matches the formatting of most related article titles. Tony  (talk)  06:11, 10 September 2011 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

A diagram is required to help readers better understand the concept.
I couldn't understand how this concept works possibly because it is too long (TLDR) or worded incorrectly. I feel the concept could be more easily explained with a diagram, This means that the viewer only has to spend a few seconds to study the diagram and understand it, rather than take a few minutes to read lines of (somewhat boring) text to understand it. Icyyak (talk) 12:37, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Bandwidth vs Latency reduction caused by double hop.
On the bottom of the article "Important Note: This "double hop" is not necessarily twice as slow"... is referring to latency, where the common issue with WDS is bandwidth. I think this needs clarified.67.167.106.3 (talk) 18:22, 22 April 2013 (UTC)