New 802.11v Wireless Format Promises to be More Eco-Friendly

Submitted by lalit on September 20, 2008 - 3:37pm.

Trapeze Network has posted details about an upcoming WiFi standard that will “green up” wireless LANs. The work on the new IEEE 802.11v standard started in 2004 and is expected to be finished in 2010. The new standard will have features that will drive down the energy consumption of wireless networks. These features include:

  • Wireless Network Management Sleep Mode, a further extension to base 802.11 power savings that will allow for longer power-off times for 802.11 radios. It will be used in conjunction with new Traffic Filtering Service to enable access points to deliver only specified frame types.
  • “Wake on WLAN” capabilities that let network managers “wake up” wireless computers and other appliances.
  • Proxy ARP that will let an access point respond to ARP requests enabling stations to power down for longer periods.
  • TIM Broadcast that will distribute traffic indication maps so stations do not need to receive every beacon frame.
  • Flexible Broadcast / Multicast services that will send broadcast / multicast frames at the highest data rate for the group of receivers thereby reducing power-on time for radio interfaces and allow for higher data rates that improve performance of multicast applications.

According to Matthew Gast, Trapeze Networks’ principal engineer, the 802.11v will have more than just power saving features and will include station management features that will give network performance and new location features that will offer more accuracy for services like RFID and emergency.

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