does Wifi direct require 802.11n supported device?

Question

My laptop has a wireless pci (Atheros AR242x / AR252x) that doesn't seem to support 802.11n. By default it uses the ath5k kernel drivers.From 'iw list' command I can see that it doesn't support P2P-GO/CLIENT interfaces.I know that ath9k drivers support P2P-GO/CLIENT interfaces, but ath9k is compatible with 802.11n devices only.

My question is: Do I require a 802.11n supported wireless card in order to use Wifi-Direct? If it is no,then how do I get my wireless card(Atheros AR242x / AR252x) to support wifi-direct? or Is there a way where I can make it use ath9k(which support wifi-direct) instead of ath5k?

Answer 1

As far as I know 802.11n support is mandated for wifi direct.I have also faced the same situation and I shifted to a hardware that supports 802.11n

Answer 2

# 1 # Wifi-Direct(WFD) is a standard that is built similar to WSC protocol(same as used in WPS) except that user intervention is reduced and more secure than WPS and more specialized on connection than its predecessor Wifi-Protected Setup. Saying that the hardware limitations is not there much except any STA mode supporting Wireless card could be made to support WFD (atleast theoratically).

# 2 # But with the current Sw-stack available for ath9k(and other MAC-Drivers under compat) its possible to readily run P2P supplicant with those.

# 3 # To brief ath9k,etc has WFD support added , while older ath5k lacks and could be made to support in future.

PS :The STA-mode operation alone is enough if the peer WFD device is of higher intent always and negotiates with our lower intented device(and these are knowledgeable guesses but never found such device so far,until i develop one).

Answer 3

WiFi Direct as is doesn't require 802.11n support although different vendors might restrict the usage to 11n-enabled devices due to demand for high speeds in common WiFi Direct usages. Essentially support depends on vendor driver capabilities, there is nothing additional in HW.