« UMA Imminent in U.S.? | Main | BT To Launch UMA for Business in 2007 »

May 5, 2006

VoWLAN Audio Tests from Interop

By Glenn Fleishman

Matthew Gast has posted audio files showing the quality of VoWLAN in testing at Interop: Gast, who works for enterprise switch maker Trapeze Networks, is part of the Interop Labs testing crew, which this year put together systems to test handsets and Quality of Service (QoS) using the 802.11e Wi-Fi Multimedia (WMM) prioritization scheme. WMM should allow voice packets to move unimpeded in the queue ahead of other data, thus making a VoWLAN call sound like a POTS (plain old telephone service) call.

Gast’s first audio recording explains the parameters of their testing and notes a lot of the particulars that make VoWLAN so difficult to implement correctly. Two following audio files show a call without WMM and with WMM. The difference is very noticeable. Gast made the calls in the challenging RF environment of Interop in which he could stop 40 to 70 APs from the booth in which he was working.

In months past, Gast has estimated the practical number of VoWLAN calls possible in 802.11b, g, and a networks. I’ll be looking forward to his analysis of 802.11n, which has vastly higher throughput and range; it can also preserve higher speeds at greater distances. One of the stumbling blocks in moving 802.11n through the IEEE process was a concern about certain elements that might make 802.11n’s use in handsets impractical. Those concerns have apparently been addressed.

Posted by Glennf at May 5, 2006 12:56 PM

Categories: Temporary Ntworks

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
https://db.isbn.nu/mt3/mt-tb.pl/3685

Comments

Post a comment