SWAN: an indoor wireless ATM network

The SWAN (seamless wireless ATM network) project investigates architectural aspects of networks containing mobile hosts. The network model includes base stations connected via a wired, ATM infrastructure and a wireless, ATM last hop to a number of mobile hosts, ranging in computational and functional abilities from personal digital assistants to notebook computers. The FAWN (flexible adaptor for wireless networking) network interface card was developed as part of the implementation of a small SWAN network. It provides wireless, ATM channels using off-the-shelf FHSS modems which operate in the 2.4 GHz industrial, scientific and medical band, and use a sequence of radio channels of 1 MHz bandwidth to provide up to 625 kb/s raw bit rate. The first phase of the implementation has been completed and provides basic wireless ATM connectivity. This paper presents an overview of the SWAN network, followed by a description of the implementation which has been built to validate our initial architectural design.