On Tue, Aug 14, 2007 at 11:32:58AM +0200, Johannes Berg wrote: > 802.11 A is easily distinguishable based on frequency, and the difference > between 802.11B/G isn't really done well in mac80211 with most 802.11G > drivers supporting only 802.11G channels and no B channels Agreed on 802.11a vs. b/g as long as frequency is used for configuration (as is the case here; channel numbers would not have been unique). Dropping the b vs. g is somewhat unfortunate, though. > What reason is there anyway for distinguishing between an 802.11G and an > 802.11B channel? Regulatory? In that case, well, needs lots of work. The original reason for adding that was that some hardware designs have separate modes for 802.11b and 802.11g and there may be cases where the 802.11b mode would be preferred. I'm not sure about all the differences in hardware, but I would assume this could include power use (save power by being able to use slower internal frequency since there is less things to do and by disabling some functionality) and maybe in some cases just the fact of disabling all non-802.11b extensions. Furthermore, frequency may not be unique in future with additional PHY changes. Having option of setting both a "mode" and frequency is a pair is a good way of making sure the design is more future proof in this area. -- Jouni Malinen PGP id EFC895FA - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-wireless" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
