The advantage in a conventional computing environment is that a driver for an 802.11 network card, can be made to behave like a standard Ethernet card driver. Therefore as far as the Operating System of the computer is concerned, it treats the connection like a regular network connection without having to know the difference. In wide-area networks, it is essential to know the difference. Here IndraNet is adapting the device drivers and routing software to add functionality. This was achieved with selective software development that used as a starting point cooperatively developed Internet software from the global open source code community.
Users can talk to, and see, each other in real time.
This is one of the most difficult and demanding features to develop to commercial viability. Through the PABX, Mark 1 DDT interoperates with the New Zealand POTS and through the POTS can interconnect with the cellular phone networks in voice over IP mode. That is to say a Mark1 DDT user can dial an ordinary telecom user or a cell-phone user. Obviously they cannot see each other because non-IndraNet users do not yet have video facilities on their phones. In brief all the demonstration objectives listed earlier have been met.