WANs and PANs

WiFi

Wi-Fi is a short for wireless fidelity

• The abbreviation is meant to be used generically when referring to any type of 802.11 network,
whether 802.11b, 802.11a, 802.11g, dual-band, etc

• Wi-fi is a wireless technology that uses radio frequency to transmit data through the air

WiFi Architecture

Ad-Hoc mode:

Peer-to-peer setup where clients can connect to each other directly.

Generally not used for business networks.

Mobile stations communicate to each other directly.

• No privileged station

No relay capabilities– nodes must be in direct range

• It’s set up for a special purpose and for a short period of time. For example, the participants of
a meeting in a conference room may create an ad hoc network at the beginning of the meeting
and dissolve it when the meeting ends.
Mesh:

Every client in the network also acts as an access or relay point, creating a “self-healing” and (in
theory) infinitely extensible network.

Infrastructure:

The network is of star type with an Access Point (AP) working as a hub.

The AP is usually connected with external (wired) networks.

Any communication has to go through AP. If a Mobile Station (MS) wants to communicate with
another MS, it needs to send the information to AP first, then AP sends it to the destination MS

Multiple APs can be connected together and handle a large number of clients.
Used by the majority of WLANs in homes and businesses.

Limitations of ad-hoc mode:

Minimal security against unwanted incoming connections:

ad-hoc WiFi devices cannot disable SSID broadcast

attackers generally will have little difficulty connecting to ad-hoc device if they
get within signal range

Signal strength indications unavailable

The WiFi networking standards (including 802.11g) require only that ad-hoc mode
communication supports 11 Mbps bandwidth
 BLUETOOTH

Universal sho rt-range wireless capability „

Bluetooth standardization began in 1998 „

Sponsors: „ Initial: Ericsson, Nokia, IBM, Toshiba, and Intel „

Expanded in 1999 to include 3 Com, Lucent, Microsoft, and Motorola „
Thousands of companies are now adopters „

Goals of system design: „ Global operation „

No fixed infrastructure required for network set-up or maintenance „
Voice and data connections „
Small, low power radio „
Low cost

Defined in a global band (2.45 GHz ISM band) „

Bluetooth devices should work any where in the world (mostly) „

Devices within 10 m can share up to 865 kbps of capacity

Network topology : Master-slave connection „

Several slaves and a master form a piconet „
Several piconets form a scatternet „
Frequency-hopped spread spectrum : Low cost, low power implementations possible „
Better immunity to near-far problem than DSSS „
Error correction schemes used to provide protection against
interference on the same narrowband channel „
Radio Parameters: „ RF band: 2.4 GHz, ISM band „
Modulation: BFSK „
Peak data rate: 1 Mb/s „
Number of hopping channels: 79 „
Carrier spacing: 1 MHz „
Peak Tx power: ≤ 20 dBm

Architecture

Piconets „
Collection of devices connected in an ad-hoc fashion

One unit acts as master and the others as slaves for the lifetime of the piconet

Each piconet has one master and up to 7 simultaneous slaves

Master determines frequency hopping pattern, slaves have to synchronize

Each piconet has a unique hopping pattern

For a slave to participate in a piconet it needs to synchronize to hopping sequence

Master announces its clock and device ID to slaves „

Master-slave switch : Slave can take on role of master if desired „

Can only be one master per piconet :

Hopping pattern determined by master’s 48-bit Bluetooth Device
Address „
Phase in hopping pattern determined by master clock „
Piconet access code determine by master ID
Channels

79 1 MHz channels „

Channel divided into 625 µs slots „

Hop occurs after each packet transmitted „

Packets can be 1, 3, or 5 slots in length „

1600 hops / second „

Time division duplex : Transmit and receive in alternate time slots „

Master-slave architecture „
Master transmits in a slot „ Slave transmits in following slot „
Master schedules all traffic: „
Master must poll slaves explicitly or implicitly by sending a master-to-
slave data/control packet „
Master can dynamically adjust scheduling algorithm „
Scheduling algorithm not specified in Bluetooth standard

Scatternets
Linking of multiple co-located piconets through the sharing of common master or slave devices

Devices can be slave in one piconet and master of another

Communication between piconets is achieved by devices jumping back and forth between the
piconets

Slaves within a piconet share 1 MHz bandwidth „

Piconets can co-exist by hopping independently :

Each piconet can access 1 MHz bandwidth „
Increase capacity compared with all nodes sharing 1
MHz channel „
Scatternets share 79 MHz bandwidth among different piconets „

Data from a nearby piconet not received by nodes in another piconet „

Nodes can belong to multiple piconets: „

Time division multiplexing „
Can be a slave in two different piconets „
Can be a master in one piconet and a slave in another
piconet „
Currently no standard for synchronization between
different piconets :„
Inefficient use of resources „
Can cause connections to be dropped
Bluetooth protocol stack
Link Manager
Performs all link creation, management, and termination operations
Responsible for all the physical link resources in the system
Handles the control and negotiation of packet sizes used when transmitting data n Controls
Operation Modes for devices in a piconet n Sets up, terminates, and manages baseband
connections between devices n Establishes different types of links dependent on requests from
the L2CAP layer n Synchronous Connection-Oriented (SCO) n Asynchronous Connection-Less
(ACL)
Asynchronous Connection-Less (ACL)

Designed for data traffic

Packet switched connection where data is exchanged sporadically as and when data is available
from higher up the stack
Data integrity is checked through error checking and retransmission
One ACL link between a master and a slave

Synchronous Connection Oriented (SCO)

Intended for use with time-bounded information such as audio or video

Provides a circuit-switched connection where data is regularly exchanged
Retransmission is not necessary, since data is real-time
Up to 3 SCO links per piconet

Host Controller Interface (HCI)

Most Bluetooth systems consist of two processors:

 The higher layers of the protocol stack (L2CAP, SDP, RFCOMM) are run on the host
device’s processor
The lower layers of the protocol stack (Baseband and radio) are run on specific Bluetooth
hardware
HCI provides an interface between the higher and the lower layers of the protocol stack

Main function of the Host Controller Interface is flow control

Many times higher layer protocols have data rates much larger than data rate across
Bluetooth radio and air interfaces
Also need to handle the reverse situation when the host cannot accept data as fast as the
Bluetooth module can send it

Host controller resides on Bluetooth hardware accepting communications over the physical bus
(radio and air)
HCI Driver resides on the host accepting communications from higher layer protocols

Service Discovery Protocol (SDP)

Idea:
Traditional LANs: Find a connection to a printer (or other resource) and keep that connection for
a long time
Bluetooth: Walk into an area, find a printer (or other resource), use it, then walk away forgetting
any details of the connection

SDP Server is any Bluetooth device that offers services to other Bluetooth device (ex. Bluetooth-
enabled printer, etc.)
Each SDP Server maintains its own database that contains information about the services that it
offers
SDP Client is any Bluetooth device that uses the services offered by an SDP Server