Zone defense: Preventing a network meltdown by preparing a high-traffic 802.11 WLAN with RFID, locationing, HD video and web browsing

In the constantly evolving field of wireless communication networks, there is a somewhat urgent demand for Real Time Location Systems (RTLS), Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and multimedia streaming over wireless networks. A combination of the services mentioned above can be achieved with the collective use of a Unified Wireless Network (UWN) and 802.11 Active RFID tags. Such services are assumed to have a major business potential in a wireless network. Wi-Fi RFID can be utilized in order to take advantage of such a potential. Nevertheless insufficient testing has been carried out in order to investigate the performance of the Wi-Fi RFID technology in large-scale environments. In this thesis we will present results from the research of Wi-Fi RFID tags within a large-scale indoor wireless network deployment carried out in New Orleans Arena in Louisiana. Due to the dynamic and constraining nature of wireless networks, limited bandwidth and delays make it very difficult to provide good location accuracy and high-quality streaming. The fact is that location applications can be bandwidth demanding and a challenging service to deliver over a wireless network. In an attempt to provide a concise remedy, we aim to prove that there is always a trade-off between the capacity of the wireless network and the accuracy of the locationing.;The location-based equipment provided for the experiment has explicitly no support for wireless network performance. By proposing solutions to support our experimentation, we will present results from testing the performance of a wireless IEEE 802.11 network, while utilizing Location Based Services (LBS), 802.11 RFID tags and video streaming.;The revelations in this paper will show a number of limitations using this new technology in different indoor small and large-scale environments. These limitations restrict the future potential for commercial services based on Wi-Fi RFID tags in wireless network solutions.