wireless network design /protocol intermixing/device drivers

[torchZ06]

here's a wireless networking design problem for somebody who knows more than me about this sort of thing:

we've run across a dilemma with our mobile robot system. basically we use 802.11b in access point or ad hoc mode to keep in contact with our robots as they move throughout a customer site... but some customer installations already have 802.11 networks and don't want us on them. so some proposed solutions are:

(1) switch to 802.11a-- different frequency range ~5ghz as opposed to ~2.4ghz, but has few hardware devices and not much linux support AFAIK..

(2) run in ad hoc mode-- two access points on the same frequency (channel) near each other would both try to handle a wireless device in range of both. but i think an ah hoc relay on the same freq as an access point might work ok if they were near each other. is this true?

(3) don't use IP-- is it possible to tie into a device driver for a wireless chipset below the IP level? basically the idea is to use the wireless chip as a packet radio, but not use IP as the protocol. this way we could co-exist with an 802.11b network and our packets to them would just be interpreted as background noise because they wouldn't be valid IP packets

maybe there is another solution, but networking isn't my thing and i know this isn't the most appropriate place to ask, but it's a great forum and maybe somebody knows somewhere else to go try and find an answer

cheers

[NeddySeagoon]

torchZ06,

Is there a problem if both you and your customers use different 802.11b networks?
You have your IP range, they have theirs.
You have your crypto, they have theirs.

All of the wireless networking uses spread spectrum of one sort or another, so even being on the same channel channel is not much of an issue, since you wll have different speading codes or frequencey hopping sequences, depending on the sort of spreading in use.

If you both have secure WiFi, theres not an issue.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

[torchZ06]

hi neddy,

thanks for the info! i ran your suggestions by my boss and he agreed that that was indeed a good way to do it, but he has reservations about relying on their infrastructure-- i was told that in the past they used to do a similar thing, but then they would change something and our communcations would go down, or that they wouldn't have coverage all the places where we needed it and so they decided to just have each group do their own thing.....

so i guess they decided to think about it some more... but i learned something in the process, so thats always a good thing

cheers