Karlnet
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: [Karlnet] AP LOCK up/ won't pass ip traffic but link test works

To: Karlnet Mailing List <karlnet@WISPNotes.com>
Subject: Re: [Karlnet] AP LOCK up/ won't pass ip traffic but link test works
From: Travis Mikalson <bofh@terranova.net>
Reply-to: Karlnet Mailing List <karlnet@WISPNotes.com>
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2004 17:36:32 -0400
List-post: <mailto:karlnet@WISPNotes.com>
I don't know, it's weird, I've sat down in a bench test environment with the brand new new flash base and connected a KN-105 to it with almost perfect stats (way under 5% retrans) and gotten 4 to 4.5mbit in either the ping fill or an actual HTTP or FTP transfer. I can't really do better than 3.5mbit to a KN-105 client that's in the field. Bridging mode, no MAC filtering, no bandwidth limiting on base or sat side, nothing weird. The 4 to 4.5mbit maximum I've seen just doesn't impress me and I've never seen anything better in the field or on the bench. On the bench I tried with Prism on both ends, Hermes I on both ends, mixing them up, etc. with no change.

Sure, it works much better than non-turbocell 802.11b when clients transmit to base, certainly not arguing that, but I have many alternatives with far fewer problems. You've seen what I've gone through and you can understand why I would be going a different direction after 6+ months of unhappy customers and ineffective troubleshooting. I've been a WISP since 1999 before anybody even came up with the term WISP and I've never had problems like this before with any equipment I've used.

The AP is set for 11mbit, although I have also for a day tested things at 5.5mbit with no difference in the interface hang or the other strange problem I described.

As I described before, one client who was categorized as "flaky" had everything perfect, no noise whatsoever, retransmits and signal strength good, clear LOS both fresnel and visual. About the only thing I didn't do is replace their KN-50 with a KN-10x. Some other client with high retrans gets going and this one would lose the ability to pass traffic while many others would just see the normal little jump in latency. The KN-50, the antenna and the radio card were all replaced, the channel has been changed, nothing did the trick for this one or any of the others in similar situations. I should try a KN-10x at some point to see if it helps (i.e. to rule out software problem with KN-50.) I still have some clients who are living with the problem so I still have the chance to try that.

-T

Dan Metcalf wrote:
Travis,

I would think that there is some other issue w/ these flaky clients,
except for this ap lockup bug, karlnet has worked very well for us and
it provides MORE bandwidth than any 802.11b solution I've tried, and
when you have clients uploading traffic to the AP/Internet, 802.11b
drops performance, while karlnet software continues to balance it all
out....

If your AP's are set for 11Mbps make sure that those links are solid and
watch out for multi-path or poor links, if you have a poor link (what
you called flaky) most likely due to poor RF, multipath, or fresnel
issues

Dan



-----Original Message-----
From: karlnet-bounces@WISPNotes.com

[mailto:karlnet-bounces@WISPNotes.com] On


Behalf Of Travis Mikalson
Sent: Thursday, July 15, 2004 12:05 PM
To: Karlnet Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Karlnet] AP LOCK up/ won't pass ip traffic but link test

works


I've also been experiencing a strange problem where these same clients
with poor signals/retrans (couple of long range links, 6 - 10 miles

plus a


couple shorter-range clients with not enough height) when they are

passing


any significant traffic at all will completely cut off service for

SOME


other clients on the AP.

It seems like I have "resistant" and "flaky" clients. The resistant

ones


will stay up and pass traffic fine with just a small increase in

latency


like 30ms instead of 6 - 8, everything's good, everything's normal.

The


flaky ones under no load will be just fine and normal, throughput's

good,


latency is good right up until one of those clients with poor
signal/retrans stats starts passing some traffic. The "flaky" clients

will


then pretty much stop passing any traffic at all, although wireless

link


test still works. I've already had to replace a couple of clients'
wireless links with DSL because of this, that's pretty embarassing.

The clients in the "flaky" category have good signals, some are KN-50

with


1.20 and some are KN-50 with 1.00, there seems to be no rhyme or

reason at


all to them acting like that. It's not their signal strength or

retrans or


their particular software version. You can replace their KN-50s +
antennas, try 1.00, try 1.20, no difference. It's like the particular
locations themselves are cursed somehow. One "flaky" client I just
replaced with DSL who was losing connectivity for minutes at a time

you


could see the tower with your naked eyes less than 1.5 miles away and

had


the most perfect link you've ever seen.

After dealing with show-stopper bugs like this and karlnet's best
802.11b-based offerings under optimal conditions performing at roughly

2/3


the speed of any modern cheap 802.11b AP even in indoor bench tests
between KN-200/KN-100, we're phasing karlnet out as much as we can. It
just doesn't work well enough to keep me or my clients happy and

Karlnet


support tries and would keep trying until end of days, but they mostly
just end up wasting my time and money. They fixed all of my KN-50s

with


1.00 that were rebooting over and over and over again every 15 - 120
seconds by providing me with 1.20, but that's the only success I've

ever


had fixing a problem. As others have mentioned, clients get frustrated

and


impatient when this stuff happens day in and day out and have to find
alternate solutions.

They had me replace my KN-200 base with a flash base which was no fun

to


do since it was the third motherboard until I got it to work with

their


software and it had no effect on anything at all. Same interface hangs

due


to bugs in their software, not even any increase

performance/throughput as


karlnet and I expected with a beefier CPU under it.

It's been a nightmare, seems like I made a poor choice in karlnet,
although the CPE price was right and it provided the range I need.

We're


phasing Karlnet out as much as we can.

-T

Caleb Carroll wrote:

Who is still experiencing this "feature" with v4.45 firmware?

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********

On 2004-07-14 at 3:00 PM Dan Metcalf wrote:



Bob,

I agree, if karlnet can't fix this I"ll have no choice... its very
frustrating when 30+ clients call me up (after I received the

30+pages


that they down) and when I do the wireless link test everything is

FINE


Dan

-- TerraNovaNet Internet Services - Key Largo, FL Voice: (305)453-4011 x101 Fax: (305)451-5991 http://www.terranova.net/ ---------------------------------------------- Life's not fair, but the root password helps.

_______________________________________________
Karlnet mailing list
Karlnet@WISPNotes.com
http://lists.wispnotes.com/mailman/listinfo/karlnet
--
[This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]






-- TerraNovaNet Internet Services - Key Largo, FL Voice: (305)453-4011 x101 Fax: (305)451-5991 http://www.terranova.net/ ---------------------------------------------- Life's not fair, but the root password helps. _______________________________________________ Karlnet mailing list Karlnet@WISPNotes.com http://lists.wispnotes.com/mailman/listinfo/karlnet

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>