BSSID Cell Splitting in Ad-Hoc Mode

[Breno Jacinto]

Hello,

    I have been working with three Nokia N810 devices, running the
updated cx3110x drivers. I'm working on setting up an Ad-Hoc network
of N810 devices as well as of other heterogeneous devices, such as
OpenMoko Freerunner and off-the-shelf laptops as well.

    A very clear pattern is that Nokia N810 devices, when put into
ad-hoc mode and participating in an existing ad-hoc network, have
trouble to sync with the current BSSID established, causing a BSSID
splitting (http://wiki.villagetelco.org/index.php/Information_about_cell-id_splitting,_stuck_beacons,_and_failed_IBSS_merges!#The_phenomenon_of_IBSS-ID_cell_splits).
When this occurs, the network as a whole becomes unstable, and nodes
stop seeing each other at layer two, since they stay in different
cells, although they have the same ESSID and channel, and are very
close to each other.

    As far as I have researched, it seems to be a driver issue, whose
ad-hoc implementation presents some bug which cause this kind of
problem.I'd like to know if you are aware of such problem and if
there's a possible fix for it. Some chipsets, such as Atheros, have
fixed this kind of issue by allowing the setting of a static BSSID
cell and disabling the automatic BSSID selection algorithm. So, it is
possible to type:

# iwconfig ath0 ap <static BSSID>

   But I was not able to do that using this driver. Are there plans
for supporting this feature?

best regards,

-- 
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:: Breno Jacinto ::
:: breno - at - gprt.ufpe.br ::
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