WiFi: Minstrel rate control algorithm
Don Robertson
Last night I went to the Christchurch Linux User Group meeting, where a
guy from IndraNet spoke about the Minstrel kernel module he wrote, and
that has been accepted into the kernel and will be available in the
2.6.28 kernel. It has also been in OpenWRT for a couple of months. And,
according to this guy, 80% of wireless routers and access points use
Linux based firmware. So pretty soon it will be the default option on
most wireless devices :-)
Minstrel is a new WiFi rate control module that improves WiFi
performance. It monitors the transmission rate and the success/failure
rates more efficiently, and steps up and down more rapidly - i.e. it
responds to environmental changes fast.
The demo's were pretty impressive - but then they usually are :-)
"That said, what I think is easily the neatest improvement in 2.6.28's
networking is that it now supports the minstrel Wi-Fi rate control"
"Frankly, based on what I've been seeing while using it with my
Linux-powered ThinkPad R61, I'd upgrade to 2.6.28 for this feature alone."
http://blogs.computerworld.com/linux_2_6_28s_five_best_features
A more technical view:
http://linuxwireless.org/en/developers/Documentation/mac80211/RateControl/minstrel
Hopefully the wireless ISP's are using Linux based firmware and remember
to upgrade :-)
Don