Hardware Plan

Presently the most open wifi drivers are those based on the ath9k chipset. All other drivers contain binary blobs in precisely the places we need to hack on, and are currently unsuitable for further development.

We MAY acquire a firmware license to deal with one or more 802.11ac chips.

The initial work will be x86 based, as the compile, test, debug cycle is shorter on that sort of hardware, and we envision several new features that might require a faster processor than what is commonly found in existing access points.

A RFP or two will be issued to find more suitable hardware in the long run, and it may turn out that custom hardware will be necessary.

While the initial work will be focused on 802.11n and later, some resources will be expended to look harder at 802.14 based systems, as well as LTE, in the hope of unifying the stack and requirements.

Hardware options

We are evaluating several platforms for future work:

x86_64 (rangeley)

http://www.supermicro.nl/products/motherboard/Atom/X10/A1SRi-2558F.cfm http://www.compex.com.sg/productdetailinfo.asp?model=WLE350NX&acc1Panel=1 http://www.zcomax.co.uk/products/index.php/products/wlan-module/802-11ac-minipci-e-module http://www.streakwave.com/Itemdesc.asp?ic=RB14e&eq=&Tp=

Qualcom/Atheros

RALINK

Lantiq