[ath9k-devel] Atheros AR5416 vs. Samsung smartphones

[ath9k-devel] Atheros AR5416 vs. Samsung smartphones

[Tamas Selmeci]

Hello all!

This is not a strictly ath9k-relevant post, but ath9k is also affected 
in my problem, so that's why I dared to send this email...

I'm creating an AP using hostapd with open security (for the reason 
please see my next email). We have tested it with several mobile phones, 
laptops, some PCI wifi cards and even with a UMPC, all of them were able 
to connect to the AP without any problem and access the internet being 
forwarded inside the AP (this is a hotspot).

Except two smartphones: Samsung i780 and Samsung Omnia.

They all can connect to the AP, but much slower, than other devices, 
both of them get a valid IP address, but most of the pings originated 
from the mobiles (with special utilities) to the AP fail, at least 50% 
of them timeouts. And pinging the phones from the AP is similar. 
Additionally, it's almost impossible to perform a successful ping 
between two clients on the AP, if any affected device is a Samsung one. 
I've double-checked all the network settings on the phones, DHCP and DNS 
server settings, they're all ok - otherwise how would other clients work 
correctly?

What I realized during the development is that a few wifi cards (and 
those are also in Samsung phones) are unable to see channels 12-13, so 
connecting to any AP operating on those channels is impossible with 
them. I took extra care to run my AP on a "seeable" channel.

Environment:
- linux-2.6.27-rc6
- ath9k-compat: 2009-01-25 and 2009-02-11;
- hostapd-0.6.7
- AR5416 card (TP-WN861N) and AR9160 (Silex);
- Samsung i780 wifi unit: SWLD24SP1, Samsung Omnia;

hostapd.conf:

interface=wlan0
driver=nl80211
hw_mode=g
country_code=DE
max_num_sta=32
logger_syslog=1
logger_syslog_level=0
logger_stdout=-1
logger_stdout_level=0
debug=1
ctrl_interface_group=0
macaddr_acl=0
ssid=testap
wpa=0
ap_max_inactivity=120
channel=8

Did anybody already experience this or such problem? I've heard (bad) 
rumours about the quality of Samsung phones...

And the mobiles are not totally rubbish, since with other routers they 
do work...

Thanks

Regards,
-- 
Tamas Selmeci