[Make-wifi-fast] Solicitation: SW engineers for better in home networks

[Robert McMahon]

Hi All,

My apologies for this solicitation. Please feel free to delete now
and/or let me know if there is a better list for this type of email.

Disclaimer: This email is not communication per my employer. These are
my thoughts & opinions only.

I'm hoping to facilitate an open source software and networking team
to improve in home networks. Though a "moon shot", this may be a way
to define radio heads connected by high speed serial links such that
open source packet and transport engineers can better serve wireless
in home networks via distributed radio heads & waveguides. The MAC/PHY
interface over a serial link needs to be defined well in an open
manner as an example. Note: The radio heads are not the same as APs
but closer to a port ASIC connected to 802.3 switch fabrics.

Please reach out to me at rjmcmahon at rjmcmahon dot com if this is of
interest to you. I think it starts with coding up a prototype and
asking installers like comm-tract to deploy some units in historic
Boston neighborhoods.

The main idea is to use a fronthaul network (some call this backhaul)
in a home and support multiple remote radio heads, e.g one or more per
room. The radio heads are effectively front end modules, CMOS radios,
PHYs and a lower MAC (802.11 bridges) connected over a fronthaul
network to a concentrator function.

This will solve a few major problems

o) Address AP/STA power imbalance
o) Significantly reduce AP/STA density and reduce Wi-Fi access delays
and provide low latency
o) Reduce the noise floor via reduced power
o) Provide for active redundancy at the PHY level

I expect more things too. (This architecture is analogous to eCPRI and
DAA and, for those that followed the ethernet switching evolution,
this is very similar to the early days of Crescendo, Cisco's first
acquisition which went from a concentrator to switching bus to a CLOS
switch fabric.)

My expectation is that the fronthaul links will be fiber. This is
because of market and NRE including power reasons, the bend ratios and
pull strength of modern fiber from companies like Corning. Also,
signal loss over copper at 100Gb/s is in dB per inch, while it's
~0.5dB per Km over fiber and independent of modulation. Though early
adopters may prefer copper or even point to point wireless. The
fronthaul design should be waveguide agnostic though it will likely
need to carry last meters wireless information.

As many know, I call the fiber version of this Fi-Wi. I think it
finally solves many of our in home networking problems.

>From Paul Baran in 1994

o) Shorter range rf transceivers connected to fiber could produce a
significant improvement - - tremendous improvement, really.
o) A mixture of terrestrial links plus shorter range radio links has
the effect of increasing by orders and orders of magnitude the amount
of frequency spectrum that can be made available.
o) By authorizing high power to support a few users to reach slightly
longer distances we deprive ourselves of the opportunity to serve the
many.
o) Communications systems can be built with 10dB ratio
0) Digital transmission when properly done allows a small signal to
noise ratio to be used successfully to retrieve an error free signal.
And, never forget, any transmission capacity not used is wasted
forever, like water over the dam. Not using such techniques represent
lost opportunity.

Here's a larger list of goals:

o) Be in the upgrade realm of the homeowner (empowered to improve
one’sprimary asset)
o) Built using a future proof and long lived cable plant and long
lived concentrator
o) Life support capable, e.g. can carry smoke detector signals with
high reliability such that fire codes will accept them as viable
o) Maximize return on labor required to install by judicial selection
of parts and equipment
o) Fault tolerant & resilient through active redundancy
o) End devices be free of all tethering
o) Be secure and mitigate vulnerabilities
o) Support low & efficient & balanced power, leverage spatial & time dimensions
o) Performs in both capacity and low latency
o) Support all the future sensor technologies including in home
location technologies
o) Support remote management & devices by ISP
o) Support single dashboard for homeowner
o) Consolidate all wireless to 802.11 to minimize technician skills

Thanks,
Bob McMahon