[plug] Wacky packet loss/delays on wireless

[Adrian Woodley]

G'Day Cameron and Pluggers,
    Wireless layer 2 guarantees packet delivery, regardless of the
packet type. This means that if you're on a poor connection, the packets
will appear to be delayed but not lost. This is particularly painful
when doing things like voip, where latency rather than acuracy is
important. If you're lucky, your APs may allow you to set the retry
attempts, time limits, etc. For linux, have a look at "iwconfig retry".

Regards,
Adrian

Cameron Patrick wrote:

>Ello all,
>,
>Has anyone else here observed intermittent horrible latency on their
>wireless links?  I'm seeing packets being delayed (not lost entirely)
>for several seconds between my laptop with ipw2100 wireless and hosts
>on the local network.  I'm using 128-bit WEP, cheapo Minitar access
>point.  The same machine is fine when directly plugged into ethernet.
>
>Ping traces below.
>
>Cameron.  (Confused.)
>