Creative learning with practical applications for 802.11 wireless communications

BYU teaches an elective course in broadband communications, with an emphasis on wireless physical layer characteristics. A Lab exercise in this course requires the students to set up and test a 802.11 wireless link between floors of the Technology building. This presents an interesting challenge since the flooring includes steel girders, rebar, corrugated steel panels, and concrete and other absorptive and dispersive materials. The students find that such materials are a significant barrier to wireless connectivity. With experimentation, they then find that with sufficient directional antenna gains at the transmitter and the receiver that the attenuation caused by the floor may be overcome and a point-to-point link established.This exercise was of direct benefit to SIGITE at the SIGITE 2004 conference. At the conference, the venue requested excessive prices to provide wireless internet access to the attendees. The students of the course described herein accepted the challenge of providing free access for the conference by configuring switches, a DHCP server, and a link between floors of the venue using high-gain antennas. Thus, the attendees were able to connect to the Internet via a WAP that was ultimately connected to the (free) hotel-provided in-room internet port. This solution is also presented in this pape.