Wired vs Wireless
Discussion
Wired vs Wireless
 The distinction between these networks is
definitely becoming less and less marked,
and to an extent, network protocols and
architectures may also have to move in that
direction.
 Anything that will call itself "general
networking" must necessarily include wireless
networking
 There is still a big difference between wired
and wireless networks in network/transport
performance beyond raw link data rates
Wired vs Wireless
 Wireless offers a different value proposition from
wired networks: more about mobility and freedom
and less about performance. Wireless enables
new unique applications, so that users are willing
to pay more per bps.
 The forthcoming explosion of wireless/mobile
devices should drive the design of the global
Internet in terms of core features such as
naming, addressing, routing, content/location
awareness, and security.
 There is an opportunity to merge, but this can
only happen if there is cross-fertilization between
communities.
Wired vs Wireless
 Wireless is a very good access technology and lastresort long-haul technology, while wireline is a great
long-haul technology and a good access technology
and there's no reason to believe the broad respective
merits of the two classes of technology will change in
the near future.
 Wireless networks must be considered to be part of
“the network” because that is the user, management,
security, enterprise, economic, and perhaps
regulatory model that exists, unless one believes in
completely “unwired” global networks.
 Most new requirements of future networking will
come out of the mobile and wireless area and goes
beyond what is need only for wired networks
Areas of Dichotomy
 Errors, Power and Topology
 We don't think power is as much a dichotomy
as has been suggested.
 The main differences are in the technologies
and protocols for aggregation in the core vs.
efficient delivery in the access network,
but other requirements are more alike than
commonly believed.
Areas of Dichotomy
 Both technologies use some part of the
spectrum,in some media, to transmit
and receive data. But the nature of the
respective spectrums is wildly different.
 Wired networks are more established,
and thus the parts within the cloud are
harder to modify incrementally.
Areas of Dichotomy
 The research challenges lie in the fact that
wireless networks are very niche and to an
extent may prevent the adoption of more
generalized concepts.
 Two examples are traffic loss, and
management of some kinds of resources very
different, e.g. power.
 A qualitatively different dichotomy is reflected
in the the underlying broadcast nature of
wireless that could be used to provide very
different communications paradigms much
more naturally than wired
Areas of Dichotomy
 Security, Naming and Mobility, routing and
quality assurance, Management
 Administration-free, "self-managing"
paradigm for ad hoc naming and
management of personal devices regardless
of whether they are attached via wireless or
wired networking technologies.
 This is largely the wrong list for wireless -most of the wireless research I'm at least
peripherally involved with fits in none of these
bins comfortably
Areas of Dichotomy
 Security: In wired networks, fingerprinting can
be foiled by topology/firewalls, but these
aren't available to first/last hop wireless
 Each new protocol opens avenues for attack
that can magnify attacker effort
 Session continuity
 Media delivery and adaptation
Dichotomies into the future
 Routing: IPv4 and IPv6
 While layering has permitted great strides in
the past, it has also caused networking
research to be performed in an application
agnostic manner. Perhaps this is hampering
the next big revolution in networking
 Integrating wireless networks and mobile
users efficiently will require greater
awareness of network conditions and
disconnected/opportunistic modes that
currently don't appear in the CDN model
Dichotomies into the future
 Handling errors in wireless remains an open
issue, especially when performanceenhancing proxies aren't an option
 Different layers of the network are used to
using different approaches, and this can
cause contention.
 Since the user has a single, perhaps longdistance experience built on a composition of
underlying resources, both wired and wireless
infrastructures, to truly effectively manage
this, information and/or analysis will need to
flow across that wired/wireless boundary
Dichotomies into the future
 A consolidated QoS/Security/Mobility
framework/solution (all through the
stack, possibly except for the
application level)
 Dynamic and adjustable content
delivery