Hardware manual

Recommended test program 9
Nov 98
There are a number of ways to benchmark performance of a wireless LAN. Here are a few that are commonly
used for product reviews and comparisons. Proxim does not recommend one method or the other except for
the fact that the same test should be used in each configuration for comparison.
1. File transfer
2. Printing
3. Loading applications over the network
4. Running client/server applications
Single client to an Access Point
Connect the Access Point to an FTP server via the Ethernet hub. Then determine the throughput with the
client station at close range of 10-20ft with line of sight between the antennas. A simple test method is to
transfer a text or executable file and record the transfer time or the throughput as reported by the FTP
program. Note that there are two different transfer modes, “get” and “put”. Downloading the test file from
the server to the wireless station is accomplished using FTP’s “get” command. The transfer process should
then be reversed (upload) and the file being sent back to the server using FTP “put”. It is advisable to run
each test 3 to 5 times to verify the consistency of the results.
No other users should be connected to the server, and the FTP client program should be executed in DOS
mode to ensure that the operating system is not falsifying the results with uncontrollable background activities.
If the operating system is Windows NT, background applications as CPU meters, clocks or multimedia tools
should be closed.