Virtual Wi-Fi

Meru Networks has announced "virtual ports" for its wireless networks - a development it claims will finally enable Wi-Fi to replace Ethernet by making it as reliable as a switched Ethernet port.

The new fast version of Wi-Fi, 802.11n, can match the performance of Ethernet, but it can still be unpredictable, said Meru's vice president of marketing, Rachna Ahlawat. Virtual ports, introduced to the latest software on Meru's wireless controllers, give each user a dedicated network service, which can be tied to quality of service and delivered data rates.

Laptops and phones connecting to a Meru network with virtual ports will each see a dedicated BSSID or Wi-Fi Mac address, analogous to a wired switch port, said Ahlawat. This will follow the user throughout the network.

"It's like having a wired network port following you, hopping from radio to radio as you move," said Meru's chief architect, Joe Epstein. "One client can't affect the performance of others," added Ahlawat.

"The approach is very interesting," said analyst Craig Mathias of Farpoint Group, "providing greater control over the relationship between the infrastructure and a given client. I'm looking forward to testing it."

The feature is made possible by Meru's existing virtual cell architecture, said Ahlawat. This "virtualises" the Wi-Fi network, so access points do not all have separate identities: the BSSIDs are centralised, and network resources can be pooled for all users. Virtual ports take this further, by partitioning the pooled resources, to deliver service level agreements to individual clients, said Ahlawat.

Most rival wireless network equipment can also set up multiple BSSIDs, sometimes called "virtual APs," for instance to provide multiple wireless networks for guests and contractors on a site. But they cannot offer virtual ports, because the BSSIDs are held on the individual access points, and not centralised and pooled, Epstein said. "In that situation, attempting to assign a BSSID per client would be wrong - the network would rapidly run out of addresses. Without pooling, virtual ports would be the utter worst case of preprovisioning - not a virtualisation solution."

"Aruba, Cisco and others are trying to find ways to optimise a hublike technology," said Epstein, making a comparison with the old-fashioned hubs that shared access to Ethernet networks until they were replaced by switches which give each client its own port. "They make it work as well as a hub can work, but there will still be a difference between that and a switch-like technology."

Virtual ports can't make capacity out of nothing, acknowledged Epstein: they still share the bandwidth of a limited number of channels. But Ethernet switches are also limited by the uplink bandwidth - and the virtual port puts the two technologies on an equal footing: "The reaction of a switch to load is predictable."

The virtual port was designed for fast Wi-Fi in mind, using the IEEE 802.11n standard, but works on the previous 802.11abg standards, and is already available on Meru's 802.11abg products, said Epstein.

Alcatel-Lucent gets WIMAX Certification

Paris, September 4, 2008 — Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) today announced that it has been awarded the WiMAX Forum Certified seal of approval for its WiMAX 802.16e Compact Base Station at 2.5GHz. This achievement further confirms Alcatel-Lucent’s leadership in WiMAX and its commitment to accelerate the development of a global and open WiMAX™ eco-system.

Alcatel-Lucent’s infrastructure portfolio is made up of products that strictly comply with the 802.16e-2005 standard (also called Rev-e), which supports fixed, nomadic and mobile services. The company’s “Open CPE Program” is helping to accelerate the availability of terminals by encompassing comprehensive interoperability testing programs with WiMAX chipset and end-user device suppliers.

This significant milestone is also the first step toward the certification of the company’s entire portfolio of WiMAX solutions already available in other licensed frequency bands and deployed in several networks worldwide, including some in commercial service today in Europe, Asia and Latin America. Alcatel-Lucent expects its 3.5GHz equipment to be WiMAX Forum Certified by end of 2008.

“Alcatel-Lucent is proud to receive the WiMAX Forum Certified designation, which acknowledges the development efforts we have made over the last four years,” said Karim El Naggar, Vice President and head of Alcatel-Lucent’s WiMAX activities. “Customers can be confident that Alcatel-Lucent’s WiMAX solution complies with the most stringent requirements of the standard and smoothly interoperates with any WiMAX Forum Certified device.”

Karim El Naggar pointed out that, unique in the industry, Alcatel-Lucent systematically guarantees strict alignment of features and compliance at 2.3, 2.5 and 3.5GHz, as part of its global mobile WiMAX™ strategy.He noted that with 30 commercial contracts and more than 70 trials around the world, ”Alcatel-Lucent is the undisputed leader in the WiMAX market,” he said.

Currently the WiMAX Forum has more than 530 member companies including service providers, regulators, equipment vendors, chip vendors and content providers. Alcatel-Lucent is a member of the WiMAX Forum board.

“The first series of Mobile WiMAX certifications by the WiMAX Forum represent a critical milestone for the WiMAX industry as it will further accelerate the availability of interoperable solutions and ensure widespread adoption and deployment of WiMAX technology and products,” said Ron Resnick, President of the WiMAX Forum. “Alcatel-Lucent is playing a key role in taking that important step with the WiMAX Forum, enabling the global WiMAX community to benefit from fully interoperable infrastructures and devices.”

To earn this certification, Alcatel-Lucent’s 802.16e WiMAX products underwent rigorous and extensive series of tests by the WiMAX Forum's lead certification laboratory partner, AT4 wireless, spanning protocol conformance, radio conformance and interoperability testing.

“Achieving Mobile WiMAX certification is the result of the teamwork between leading wireless companies and our lab people, the most experienced in WiMAX certification testing world-wide. That is why AT4 wireless would like to thank Alcatel-Lucent for its key contribution towards putting in place the necessary process and tools,” said Fernando E. Hardasmal, Deputy General Director at AT4 wireless.

In addition to being a board member of the WiMAX Forum, Alcatel-Lucent is a founding member of the Open Patent Alliance formed by key industry players to advance WIMAX 4G technology.

Belden acquired Trapeze Networks

St. Louis - Belden – June 6, 2008 – (NYSE:BDC) has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Trapeze Networks, a leading provider of wireless local area networking (WLAN) equipment and management software, for $133 million in cash. The acquisition builds on Belden's market-leading position as a complete signal transmission solutions provider by adding a recognized leader in the wireless LAN market.

Wireless extends the reach of Belden's physical-layer cable and connectivity products and enables the company to address the growing mobility needs of customers. "Belden's strategic vision is to provide the best signal transmission solutions to our customers regardless of technology," said John Stroup, President and Chief Executive Officer of Belden. "We believe the acquisition of Trapeze Networks uniquely positions Belden to offer our enterprise customers tailored connectivity solutions that benefit from blending the strengths of copper, fiber and wireless technologies. Trapeze Networks Smart Mobile wireless LAN solutions deliver superior performance, security, reliability and management capabilities, making this a highly attractive wireless investment for Belden's future. The acquisition will make Belden the world's largest unified wired and wireless solutions provider and will provide expanded market access for Trapeze Networks' Smart Mobile solutions.

"We believe we are at an inflection point in enterprise wireless LAN expansion, a market that is already growing nearly 25 percent per year, and that wireless connectivity is no longer considered a luxury but is a customer expectation," added Mr. Stroup.

Trapeze Networks, a privately held company based in Pleasanton, California, with 2007 revenues of $56 million, sells its products into healthcare, education, manufacturing, retail, government and other enterprise verticals through OEMs and distribution channels. The Trapeze product portfolio is an end-to-end WLAN system built on a highly scalable and secure wireless operating system running on Trapeze Networks access points and controllers and features the industry's most robust management software capabilities. More than 4,000 organizations around the world have deployed Trapeze wireless platforms.

Jim Vogt, President and Chief Executive Officer of Trapeze, said, "During the past six years, enterprise customers around the world have invested in Trapeze Networks Smart Mobile because they can depend on it for constant connectivity and reliable mobility. The superior performance and cost benefits of our highly acclaimed wireless LAN products have fueled our global growth through distribution and through our OEM relationships with 3Com, Enterasys, Nortel and other large networking companies. Our customers can now be assured of continued product innovation and new capabilities from the combined resources of Belden and Trapeze."

Impact on Belden's Outlook

Because Trapeze Networks sells software as well as hardware and services, the company is required under accounting principles generally accepted in the United States to defer and amortize certain revenues over the lives of contracts until it can establish vendor-specific objective evidence of the fair market value of each separate deliverable. The majority of Trapeze Networks' revenue is deferred and is typically amortized over periods of a year or more. This accounting treatment makes the acquisition more dilutive to Belden's expected earnings in 2008 and 2009 than would otherwise be the case.

John Stroup said, "The acquisition of Trapeze Networks furthers our strategy, and we expect that it will provide a return on invested capital for Belden consistent with or better than that of our successful 2007 acquisitions. We expect that the total dilutive impact of revenue deferral and amortization for 6 months in 2008 to be $0.15 to $0.20 and in 2009 $0.25 to $0.30. Despite this impact, we expect the transaction to be neutral in operating cash flow in 2008 and a positive contributor to operating cash flow in 2009 and beyond.

"The expected dilution from the Trapeze acquisition, including the impact of revenue deferral and the recurring amortization of intangible assets resulting from the purchase, but excluding short-term, nonrecurring amortization, will be in the range of $0.27 to $0.32 in 2008 and $0.25 to $0.30 in 2009," said Mr. Stroup. "We expect that the acquisition will be accretive on a GAAP basis in 2010 and beyond.

"Our outlook for 2008 remains unchanged except for the expected effects of the planned acquisition. Because of the mid-year timing of the closing of this transaction and the deferral of Trapeze Networks' revenue, our expectations for consolidated revenue remain in the range of $2.2 to $2.3 billion. We expect our operating margin to be in the range of 11 to 12 percent, and we are adjusting our expectation for 2008 earnings per diluted share to the range of $3.15 to $3.35."

Aruba's 10000th 802.11n AP

Aruba Networks announced that its shipments of 802.11n enabled access points have passed a milestone 10,000 units. Aruba announced its dual-radio AP-124 and AP-125 802.11n Access Point family in November 2007, and volume shipments commenced in February 2008. The company's AP-124ABG and AP-125ABG field-upgradable access points were announced last month. Based on 2nd generation RF chips, the access points can be powered from a single 802.3af Power-over-Ethernet source and feature 3x3 MIMO operation and ultra-compact packaging.

"The second half of 2007 saw the first shipments of coordinated enterprise-class '802.11n Draft 2.0 Wi-Fi Certified' access points," said Gartner Senior Research Analyst Christian Canales, author of Gartner Dataquest's 2008 Market Share: Enterprise Wireless LAN Equipment, Worldwide, 4Q07 and 2007 report. "Worldwide revenue from sales of WLAN enterprise equipment increased more than 10% from 2006 to 2007, and coordinated access points accounted for 48% of the overall enterprise access point shipments in the last quarter of 2007, versus just 39% in the last quarter of 2006."

The California State University system, recipient of the 10,000th 802.11n access point, selected Aruba's wireless networks for use across its 23 campuses in September 2007. With nearly 450,000 students and 46,000 faculty and staff members, the California State University system is the largest in the country. Aruba was selected after it passed a stringent functional test, and demonstrated the lowest total cost of ownership for the specific criteria used in the evaluation.

Aruba's implementation of 802.11n offers substantive ease-of-use, performance, and interoperability advantages over competing solutions. Aruba's Adaptive Radio Management (ARM) technology automates wireless LAN set-up and maintenance, and adapts the network in real-time to accommodate user behavior, interference, and nearby networks. ARM features include:

• Airtime fairness to ensure that slower 802.11b/g clients have minimal impact on high speed 802.11n clients in lecture halls, trading floors, convention centers, and logistics facilities with densely deployed clients
• Co-channel interference management for the highest possible throughput in the presence of nearby access points and RF transmitters;
• Intelligent client steering to provide high speed clients with access to the greatest available bandwidth by associating them with the best band, channel and access point.

Interoperability tests published in March validated the efficacy of ARM - laptops containing wireless radio chip sets from Atheros, Broadcom, and Intel delivered the highest throughput with Aruba's 802.11n solution compared with three competing wireless LANs.

"Ease of use, high performance, and interoperability are the hallmarks of Aruba's 802.11n solution, and the fast uptake of our 802.11n access points reflects the importance of these features to customers," said Keerti Melkote, Aruba's co-founder and head of products and partnerships. "Not content to sit on our laurels, we continue to drive innovation into the 802.11n market. A case in point is our new line of economical 802.11a/b/g access points that can be upgraded via software download to 802.11n Draft2.0."

Source Aruba Networks

Wi-Fi in Education

Althought 802.11n 2.0 Wi-Fi isn't an official wireless standard, 99 percent of all North American universities will be using it in the year 2013, according to a report released in these days by market-watcher ABI Research. 802.11n, a proposed upgrade to today's wireless networking schemes such as 802.11b and 802.11g, promises far greater speed than its predecessors.

Less than three percent of such universities and colleges are using 802.11n Wi-Fi, but adoption of the wireless technology will grow rapidly during the coming five years, ABI Research predicts. This study examines the differences in environments, buying patterns, and usage patterns.. Wi-Fi usage in lower-level academic environments, like K-12 schools, is also expected to grow significantly during that time period, due largely to a need for enhanced security, which could be provided via wireless video surveillance, and that fact that more and more schools are instituting what ABI calls "anytime-anywhere learning.".

North American universities are clearly leading the charge towards ubiquitous Wi-Fi in academic locales, but the rest of the globe is starting to join in, led by Europe, according to ABI. However, Wi-Fi adoption in European cities could be hindered, ABI says, by lingering health concerns in that region associated with the technology.

Regardless, global revenue from Wi-Fi access point and controller equipment in the higher-education space will jump more than six-fold from $137 million in 2007 to $837 million in 2013, ABI says.

"ABI Research believes that Wi-Fi access point and controller equipment revenue in the global higher education space will skyrocket," in the next five years, says Stan Schatt, ABI VP and research director.

More ABI

Nationwide Wireless Network

Sprint Nextel, Clearwire, Google, Intel, Comcast, and Time Warner have all come together under the name of Clearwire, in an effort to produce a nationwide wireless network. The deal is estimated to be approximately 14.5 billion dollars. The investment by the five strategic investors will be based on a target price of $20.00 per share of Clearwire's common stock, subject to a post-closing adjustment. This adjustment is based upon the trading prices of new Clearwire common stock on the NASDAQ Market over 15 randomly selected trading days during the 30-trading day period ending on the 90th day after the closing date. The price per share will be based upon the volume weighted average price on such days and is subject to a cap of $23.00 per share and a floor of $17.00 per share. In addition, Trilogy Equity Partners, led by wireless veteran John Stanton, will invest directly in the new Clearwire's common stock.

The deal, which has been approved by the boards of all companies involved, is expected to close during the fourth quarter. The company will apply for a Nasdaq listing under the ticker "CLWR."
The new company is looking for a US network deployment reaching 120 million to 140 million people by the end of 2010. Company officials said they'll need up to $2.3 billion more in funding by getting additional investors or borrowing. They also could simply shrink the size of the network.
The network is predicted at being so fast that it will deliver video and advertising as well as text and simple Web pages.

Benjamin G. Wolff, chief executive officer of Clearwire, said, "The combination of robust next-generation mobile WiMAX technology and nationwide spectrum that we believe is optimal for delivering mobile broadband services - coupled with substantial new financial resources, a team of experienced wireless industry veterans, and distribution and technology agreements with some of our nation's leading communications, technology and content companies - creates what I believe to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. "

In addition to its investment in the venture, Google will integrate many of its online services with Sprint’s forthcoming WiMAX networks. The Mountain View, California-based search engine will become Sprint’s default mobile search provider, and Google Maps Mobile and YouTube accessibility will be offered on all new Sprint handsets.

"This exciting new venture enables Time Warner Cable to help shape the next generation of wireless services in ways that will complement and enhance our products and services," said Glenn Britt, Time Warner Cable's president and chief executive officer. "We're committed to giving our customers more control over how and where they can easily connect to what's important to them - entertainment, information, and each other. The agreements we're announcing today are a financially prudent way for us to add mobility to our offerings when our customers demand it."

Mobile WiMAX is a standards-based wireless broadband technology designed to operate multiple times faster than today's 3G wireless networks. With embedded WiMAX chipsets in laptops, phones, PDAs, mobile Internet devices and consumer electronic equipment, mobile WiMAX technology is expected to allow users to wirelessly access a range of multimedia applications, such as live videoconferencing, recorded video, games, large data files and more - anywhere in the network coverage area.

Watch here the full story from Reporter Abby Prince.

Source WebProNews

Wi-Fi spectrum

Look at the spectrum of the Wi-Fi at 2.4 GHz on a Tektronix Spectrum Analyzer. Watch closely the bursts. The analyzer uses a Yagi probe antenna.
Short movie taken at Romcontrola 2008.

Wireless data prices fall, usage booms

Mobile data traffic ramped up between four- and eightfold in 2007 thanks to the knockout combination of dramatically decreasing prices and faster network downlink speeds, according to a report from Heavy Reading.

The surge in data traffic is extremely good news for operators, but the challenge they now face is how to withstand the reductions in data prices without destroying their business models and becoming mere bit-pipe providers.

In 2007, an eightfold increase in data traffic compared with 2006 levels was common for mobile operators that introduced competitive flat-rate data plans and weren't carrying much data traffic prior to the deployment of HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) technology, according to the report, "Flat IP Architectures in Mobile Networks: From 3G to LTE."

For operators with a lot of pre-HSPA 3G data traffic and without competitive flat-rate data plans, three- and fourfold increases in data traffic in 2007 were common.

Gabriel Brown, Heavy Reading senior analyst and the report's author, says it' is "no wonder that data usage is growing because performance is getting better and prices are coming down. 2007 was the breakthrough year. You're getting 1 Mbit/s to 2 Mbit/s downlink routinely, and prices have come down massively."

According to Brown's report, data traffic volumes at Telefónica O2 Europe plc doubled every quarter in 2007 after it launched a one Euro ($1.59) per day flat-rate service using USB modems in Spain. And T-Mobile International AG recorded a 57 percent increase in 3G data volumes in the third quarter last year compared with the previous three-month period.

Brown stresses that the increase in mobile data usage is primarily due to lower tariffs -- prices declined more than 300 percent in 2007, according to the report.

Now operators have to decide how low they can take their prices, and how they deal with the impact of the data surge on their business plans and strategies. "Mobile operators are essentially becoming ISPs," says Brown. "They are going down the bit-pipe road. They don't want to do that, particularly, but what should they do?"

In Europe, the price competition is most aggressive in markets where 3 Group is present, such as Austria, Italy, Sweden, and the U.K. 3 shook up the U.K. market in August last year with a £10 ($20) per month offer for a USB mobile broadband service.

The operator is reportedly ready to cut that offer by 50 percent to £5 ($10) per month.

Original article

Telsima's 50km broadband Internet connection at 450MHz

Telsima Corporation announced that is has successfully demonstrated a 50km (30mile) high capacity broadband connection using its Sub-GHz WiMAX system in a 3 MHz channel under near line of sight conditions in the 450 MHz frequency band. Telsima’s Sub-GHz solution is able to accommodate any carrier frequency from 400MHz to 1000MHz, enabling operators to rapidly deploy a tunable solution to suit their allocated frequency band.

The tests, conducted under over a period of several days in the months of February and March of 2008 in Slovenia, stimulated significant commercial interest for using 450MHz and other sub-GHz frequencies carrier grade frequency bands. The base station was located at Vir Domžale silos with a vertically polarized antenna with 10.15 dBi gain. The subscriber station, using a Yagi antenna with a 10.65 dBi gain, was installed in a car that drove across terrain that included dense foliage and wooded hills. At a distance of 50 km, at Javornik, the WiMAX system communication link yielded excellent results; modulating at 64QAM in the downlink and 16QAM in the uplink; providing over 6Mbps throughput over the wireless link.

Wolfgang Mack, CMO Telsima commented, “Compared to higher frequency systems, the Sub-GHz solutions are technically and economically suited for covering large areas where the foliage is dense and the terrain does not allow for line of sight communications between the subscriber station and base station. We are very optimistic in our Sub-GHz solution’s capability to address the needs of high coverage, low density markets with high modulation rate capacity”.

Burcak Beser, CTO Telsima, explains, “These lower frequencies perform better in wooded and hilly environments because of their superior wave propagation characteristics enabling large sectors and wave diffraction around interfering objects such as hills and buildings. Rural areas in global markets, where the subscriber density is lower, are therefore more efficiently served using these sub-GHz frequencies. Of particular significance of our system demonstration is the excellent connection quality; sustaining modulation rates of 64QAM in the downlink and 16QAM in the uplink in a WiMAX system configuration suitable for wireline replacement voice quality services.

Telsima’s 450/700 MHz solution includes Base Stations, Subscriber Stations, NMS and Service Provisioning. Telsima’s Sub-GHz systems are able to deliver Internet, Voice and Multimedia services over a wireless broadband connection to remote users where coverage is more important than initial system capacity. This solution was unveiled in December 2007 and is expected to be in commercial deployments in the second half of 2008.

Telsima’s mobile WiMAX product portfolio allows operators to offer mobile services, MIMO antenna diversity and ASN network control today while smoothly migrating to 802.16e-2005 and NWG ASN solutions once commercially available.

More about here

133 Million WiMAX Users by 2012

The WiMAX Forum announced it projects more than 133 million WiMAX users globally by 2012. The forecast is based on the results of an independently commissioned research study to be published in April 2008. Additional data from the study estimates that approximately 70 percent of the forecasted WiMAX users by 2012 will utilize mobile and portable WiMAX devices to access broadband Internet services.

The report entitled, WiMAX Forum Worldwide Subscriber and User Forecasts, examines the progress of WiMAX service providers, equipment vendors, content developers and users in regions around the world. The preliminary results released at CTIA Wireless in Las Vegas reflect the accelerated growth of the WiMAX ecosystem, the acceptance of WiMAX technology and demand for mobile Internet services across the world.

"WiMAX is here now and is the catalyst in the global marketplace to grow demand for mobile broadband Internet access," said Ron Resnick, president of the WiMAX Forum. "This new subscriber and user forecast is a solid proof point of the future growth of the thriving mobile Internet ecosystem and presents reasonable predictions of the positive progress our industry is working to achieve."

According to the study, a key driver of WiMAX subscriber and user growth will be the ambitious adoption of WiMAX technology in specific regions, including Asia Pacific and the Americas, where WiMAX technology is anticipated to be the leading technology selected to deliver broadband Internet access to a greater geography of these regional populations.

Further signifying the rapid growth of the WiMAX ecosystem, the first Mobile WiMAX Certified products are expected to achieve certification in Q2 2008. This milestone will foster additional growth for the more than 260 service providers deploying WiMAX services in 110 countries worldwide. The WiMAX Forum estimates that by 2011 there will be more than 1,000 Mobile WiMAX Forum Certified products found throughout the world.

Chrysler goes wireless

Chrysler will offer Wi-Fi Internet connectivity as a dealer-installed option on all models in the fourth quarter of 2008 and a blind-spot monitor as a factory option on its 2009 Chrysler Town & Country and Dodge Grand Caravan minivans.

Chrysler said the Wi-Fi and 4G (fourth-generation wireless) technology will allow Internet and e-mail access along with the ability to download movies and music to a vehicle. Chrysler said it plans to make the technology a factory-installed option at some point.

The radar-based blind-spot monitoring system for the minivans displays a visual warning in the sideview mirror when the vehicle is moving forward and another vehicle enters a blind spot. If a turn signal is activated, it sounds a warning. A "rear cross path" feature also offers alerts when the minivan's in reverse.

Ford will offer a similar system on some 2009s that works with its radar-based blind spot monitoring that will show the blind spot in secondary convex sections of the sideview mirrors.

Chrysler also is adding front-axle disconnect on all-wheel-drive versions of the 2009 300 and Dodge Charger to allow them to get better fuel economy from rear-wheel-drive.

Wireless08 21-22 May London

Wireless’08 is about delivering wirefree enterprise mobility and services. It brings together all the leading suppliers and expert speakers giving you an overview of the full breath of wireless solutions for your business whatever your chosen delivery platform is be it WiFi, WiMax, RFID, 3G, 4G.

Wireless08, now in its sixth year has an unprecedented track record of exhibitor and visitor growth, reflecting the demand for a dedicated enterprise mobility event. Wireless08 will deliver in excess of 4,000 technical and strategic decision-makers, all eager to discover how wireless can be put to work for their enterprise.

You can register here

Aerohive launches new 802.11n AP's

Aerohive Networks announced a portfolio of 802.11n HiveAPs. This includes the attractively designed dual-radio HiveAP 320 for indoor use, the metal-chassis dual-radio HiveAP 340 for indoor-industrial use, and the waterproof three-radio HiveAP 380 for outdoor use. Each product has two Gigabit Ethernet ports that provide power-over-Ethernet (PoE) using Aerohive's patent-pending Smart PoE technology. Aerohive's cooperative control architecture eliminates the need for costly centralized network controllers, enabling Aerohive to provide a resilient 802.11n solution for the cost of most vendors' 802.11g solutions. More information about the new products and the company's cooperative control wireless LAN architecture is available at www.aerohive.com.

Cooperative Control Unlocks the Power of 802.11n

Aerohive's controller-less wireless LAN architecture is ideal for 802.11n networks, because it eliminates the need to deploy the expensive, high-capacity controllers that are required to handle the increased throughput of 802.11n. Removing controllers from the network also eliminates the bandwidth bottlenecks, latency, and jitter that result from backhauling traffic through a controller. Resiliency is also increased when the single points of failure found in controller-based architectures are eliminated. The result is a scalable wireless LAN that can support high-performance, mission-critical applications.

"The wireless LAN in our Emergency Room environment runs mission-critical applications," said John Gaede, director, information systems, El Centro Regional Medical Center. "We evaluated three other leading WLAN vendors and chose Aerohive for our .11n deployment because of the Aerohive architecture's benefits of scale, resiliency, and ease-of-use. Of all the systems we evaluated, Aerohive also had the best performance, the least packet loss, and the best coverage. Cooperative control is the wireless LAN architecture of the future."

"The problems generally associated with centralized network controllers - cost, capacity, performance, and availability - are exacerbated in an 802.11n environment," said David Flynn, chief executive officer, Aerohive. "By contrast, the benefits of our unique, controller-less architecture become even more apparent in 802.11n deployments. Every organization interested in 802.11n needs to reconsider their WLAN architecture, and when they do, they will see the compelling advantages of Aerohive's cooperative control architecture."

Cooperative Control, Smart PoE Technology Accelerates Migration to 802.11n
The Aerohive cooperative control architecture makes it easy for enterprises to upgrade their wireless access points to 802.11n on an as-needed basis. Aerohive 802.11n HiveAPs may be seamlessly deployed along with 802.11a/b/g HiveAPs. Aerohive also enables easy migration to 802.11n from autonomous or "fat" access points. If 802.11n HiveAPs are deployed on the same subnet or VLAN as an enterprise's fat access points, network users can even roam between the HiveAPs and their old fat access points, which is often not possible with controller-based 802.11n deployments.

The new HiveAPs also facilitate the transition to 802.11n by providing flexible support for legacy network switches. Aerohive's Smart PoE technology automatically detects the level of Power over Ethernet (PoE) being delivered by the connected switches. Most legacy switches can provide a HiveAP with full power via a single 802.3af PoE connection. If required, HiveAP services can be automatically reduced to fit within the delivered power envelope.

When the HiveAP's dual gigabit Ethernet ports are connected to two PoE ports, the HiveAP is always fully powered. If the HiveAP is connected to two separate switches, it can optionally support dual homing for increased resiliency. If the HiveAP is connected to two ports on the same switch, the HiveAP provides Ethernet link aggregation for increased bandwidth if the switch supports link aggregation. A single PoE+ or 802.3at connection will also fully power a HiveAP. When two PoE+ connections are available, the HiveAP will also support redundant power and data resiliency.

Resilient 802.11n for the Price of Other Vendors' 802.11g

Aerohive's resilient 802.11n wireless LAN solutions cost approximately the same as competitors' 802.11a/b/g resilient solutions. The Aerohive cooperative control architecture, with its inherent resiliency, eliminates the need for costly network controllers and backup controllers. In addition, critical features, such as wireless mesh capability, security, and QoS, which are commonly separately licensed, are included in HiveAPs at no additional charge. Aerohive's 802.11n HiveAPs are priced approximately the same as competitors' 802.11n access points. As a result, solutions that require network controllers will nearly always be more expensive, often 200%-300% more expensive, than an Aerohive controller-less solution.

Pricing and Availability

The HiveAP 320 indoor access point has a U.S. list price of $1299 and will be available in July. The HiveAP 340 indoor-industrial access point has a U.S. list price of $1499 and will also be available in July. The HiveAP 380 outdoor access point has a U.S. list price of $2999 and will be available in the fourth quarter of 2008.

New Wi-Fi APs from Aruba

Aruba Networks announced a new line of 802.11a/b/g access points that can be upgraded over-the-network to enable 802.11n dual-radio operation. The new access points allow enterprises, schools, universities, hospitals, and other institutions to prepare today for a future migration to 802.11n without incurring the cost of an immediate upgrade.

The new AP-124ABG and AP-125ABG Access Points can be used for wireless access, intrusion-detection monitoring, secure enterprise mesh or remote access point applications. The mode of operation is determined by network-downloadable software, which eliminates the expense of physically accessing the devices to re-purpose or update them. Full 802.11n performance is delivered using existing 802.3af Power-over-Ethernet (PoE), precluding the need for an expensive PoE upgrade.

"The exact timing of the migration to 802.11n varies by user based on their application requirements, the availability of 802.11n clients, and budget," said Michael King, Research Director at Gartner, Inc. "Since WLAN infrastructure purchases must address both current and future requirements, enabling a flexible approach to 802.11n roll out will meet the needs of a wide range of organizations including those that haven't yet nailed down the timeline for implementing 802.11n."

Aruba's new dual-radio AP-124ABG and AP-25ABG Access Point family is based on the newest generation RF chips and high-performance MIPS CPUs with hardware-accelerated cryptographic processing. Featuring 3x3 Multiple-In Multiple-Out (MIMO) operation, the access points include automatic Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) management that supports 802.3af, 802.3at, and PoE +. The access points will operate in 3x3 MIMO mode using a single 802.3af PoE injector over a single Ethernet cable. A local 5VDC power source is provided for non-PoE applications.

Unique to this family of products, a Trusted Protection Module (TPM) manages security credentials to protect access points installed in unsecured areas. The TPM specification was defined by the TPM subgroup of the Trusted Computing Group (TCG) for the secure generation and storage of cryptographic keys, and is widely implemented on devices for which high security is essential.

The new access points will be managed by Aruba's vendor-neutral AirWave Wireless Management Suite. AirWave is a leading tool for centrally managing large, multi-vendor wireless LAN, mesh, and WiMAX networks. One of the key benefits of the tool is its ability to simplify technology migrations by integrating both legacy and new infrastructure under a single management console.

"The new access points address two primary customer concerns: how to prepare for 802.11n when the budget to make a full conversion is not available, and how to support 802.11n without replacing existing infrastructure such as 802.3af PoE," said David Munro, Aruba's head of controller platforms. "We believe we have accomplished both objectives with the AP-124ABG and AP-125ABG, and anticipate that the products will be especially attractive to customers such as school districts that are going through a wireless LAN refresh cycle now with an eye on their networking needs one or two years down the line. The new access points should meet today's budget constraints, while paving the way for a future upgrade without a forklift replacement."

The new access points will be shipping early this summer, and will be introduced at Interop Las Vegas, April 29, May 1, booth 1262, at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center.

New WIPS from Aruba

Aruba Networks, a global leader in user-centric networks and secure mobility solutions, today announced a new version of its RFprotect Wireless Intrusion Prevention System (WIPS) software that allows users to define their own attack-detection signatures and defend against previously unknown, undisclosed, or unpatched vulnerabilities (zero-day attacks). These user-defined signatures can be implemented almost immediately, enhancing security and giving users more control over their threat vulnerability. All other wireless intrusion prevention systems require the supplying vendor to provide updates, leaving customers vulnerable in the meantime when a new attack is developed.

In addition, Aruba customers will be able to make their user-defined signatures available to others by contributing them to the Wireless Vulnerabilities and Exploits (WVE) database at www.wve.org, a community vulnerabilities database. Aruba has long been an active participant in the WVE Project.

"Security is an unending, iterative process in which the best defense is built by rapidly integrating updates about real or potential attacks as quickly as possible," said Rajeev Shah, Aruba's wireless IDS product manager. "User-defined threat definitions are used successfully in other segments of the security market, and we're pleased to be the first to make it available for WIPS."

The new software represents the full integration of the RFprotect software that Aruba acquired from Network Chemistry in 2007. RFprotect software automatically detects network vulnerabilities and contains unauthorized clients and adhocs even as they roam. With its customizable security policies, RFprotect software delivers organization-specific security policy enforcement, reduces false positives, and generates reports to meet compliance requirements.

Originally acquired from Network Chemistry in 2007, RFprotect software automatically detects network vulnerabilities and contains unauthorized clients and adhocs even as they roam. Featuring customizable security policies, RFprotect software delivers organization-specific security policy enforcement, reduces false positives, and generates reports to meet compliance requirements. The new RFprotect software has been integrated into Aruba's secure mobility solutions to enhance Layer 1-2 security capabilities.

"It is important that interval between the detection of a security threat and its mitigation be as short as possible because of the vulnerability created by the gap," said Paul DeBeasi, senior analyst at Burton Group. "Collaboratively developing, testing, and disseminating security features, including user-defined signatures, can minimize the vulnerability more rapidly than relying on a single vendor for periodic updates. This method has been used effectively in areas such as virus detection, and is an innovative way to enhance WIPS security."

The new RFprotect software will be shipping early this summer, and will be introduced at Interop Las Vegas, April 29 May 1, booth 1262, at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center.

Meru launched a new 802.11n AP

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Apr. 21, 2008 – Meru Networks has introduced the AP440, a four-radio IEEE 802.11n wireless access point that provides the data rates and functionality to let enterprises replace aging wired infrastructures with wireless networks without compromising access speed, throughput capacity, security or resiliency.

The AP440 has four radios that can each support the full draft IEEE 802.11n standard, in either the 2.4GHz or the 5GHz band. Meru's "channel blanket" architecture means that all four can be in use at once, though likely set-ups will probably use one radio for monitoring, intrusion detection, and protection from rogue access points.

Each of the AP440's four IEEE 802.11n radios supports access at up to 300 megabits per second (Mbps), for 1.2 gigabit-per-second (Gbps) capacity. Because the four radios work together to provide internal redundancy, load-balancing and security, enterprise users can dramatically reduce the number of access points and additional security sensors they need, realizing significant savings on cabling, connection and deployment/installation costs.

"By 2010, we predict that 79 percent of new connections will be wireless," said Rachna Ahlawat, Meru's vice president of marketing. "Security is no longer the number one concern - it is now reliability, followed by capacity, scalability, security and price."

Although the access point will be announced at next week's Interop conference in Las Vegas, it won't be available until the third quarter of this year. This could be useful in that it may allow electrical power to catch up with it. The current standard for power over Ethernet, IEEE 802.3af, will not deliver enough electrical power to run four Wi-Fi radios, but the next specification, 802.3at, should start to be available in products by then, said Vaduvur Bharghavan, Meru Networks chief technology officer.

The four radios should operate omni-directionally and without interfering with each other, said Bharghavan. With four channels, it will be easier to avoid unexpected interference, such as that from microwave ovens, said Bharghavan. "The best thing is to have a parallel channel available in the same band," he explained, saying traffic can move across right away, whereas in a channel-planning WLAN, such as those of Aruba, Trapeze and Cisco, moving an AP from one channel to another would mean dropping all the clients, and then changing the channel - and then changing channels on neighbouring APs. "If clients need to change channels, we are optimised to do that. It's not been done before."

The access point also includes a USB port, so the user can plug in a Wi-Fi monitoring device, on a few access points, such as the Metageek Wi-Spy spectrum analyzer, which improves on plain Wi-Fi monitoring by spotting other sources of interference such as microwave ovens and Bluetooth. "We have software on the AP that interfaces and pulls spectrum analysis off the Wi-Spy" said Bhargavan. "As spectrum analyzers get more sophisticated, it won't require a hardware upgrade to the AP - you can just plug in a different analyzer."

Meru is also announcing a virtual-reality visualisation tool which can display three-dimensional "heat-maps" of Wi-Fi coverage in a building. It relates access points on different floors, so should give a better indication of coverage, and allows the network manager to move through the building checking on likely coverage from his or her desk. This is an additional extra to Meru's existing management software, and costs $9,995.

The AP440 Access Point is priced at $2,995 and the MC5000 4-Gbps Acceleration Module at $15,000 (U.S. list). Both products will be available in the third quarter of 2008.

More: Meru

AT&T Completed Acquisition of Edge Wireless

San Antonio, Texas, April 18, 2008

AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) today announced that the company has completed, through a subsidiary, the acquisition of Edge Wireless. Edge is a provider of wireless communications services in Oregon, northern California, Idaho and Wyoming.

The addition of Edge's wireless network will allow AT&T to deliver broader wireless coverage to customers in the Northwest, including Edge's existing subscribers. Edge customers will also gain access to AT&T's portfolio of products and services, as well as to the nation's largest voice and data network, which covers more than 290 million people.

The two companies have a long-standing relationship as roaming partners, and AT&T expects a smooth customer transition. AT&T will immediately begin to implement a carefully planned process to integrate the AT&T and Edge Wireless networks, combine product portfolios and merge customer care initiatives.

The acquisition of Edge Wireless follows review and approval by the Federal Communications Commission.

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Cisco is urging its partners to partner

At the Cisco Partner Summit in Honolulu, the company announced the launch of the Cisco Partner Exchange, a virtual networking program that will enable resellers to find each other by technical expertise or by offering, among other factors, to collaborate on customer projects.

While collaboration in the channel is growing, and many partners say it is a necessary development, others remain wary.

"Competitive overlap discourages partners from cooperating," said Robert Keblusek, senior vice president of business development at Cisco partner Sentinel Technologies Inc. in Downers Grove, Ill. "What they're promoting is good, but it's whether they can change some of that attitude over the next couple of years. Just because Cisco says 'go partner' doesn't mean all of a sudden they'll let their guard down."

At the summit, Cisco channel chief Keith Goodwin plugged channel collaboration as a way to drive sales and contribute to the 12% to 17% growth CEO John Chambers has called for.

Noting that it's not always easy for partners to work together when they are competitors, Cisco execs said channel collaboration will, however, result in more customers with bigger deals and deeper relationships. The idea is that not every reseller has competency in all of Cisco's practice areas, and resellers can therefore help each other to fill in the gaps.

In support of the partner exchange, Cisco executives cited statistics from a self-commissioned study of 1,300 customers and 500 channel partners in 12 countries that shows the benefits of partner collaboration.

According to the study, collaboration among Cisco partners makes up 31% of channel revenue and is growing by 15% annually. Channel collaboration enables 78% of responding resellers to win larger projects, 75% to acquire new customers and 74% to increase their revenue, the study showed. In addition, 78% of the respondents reported achieving greater technical differentiation, and 66% reported improved industry-specific expertise as a result of partnering.

Collaboration is not new to partners, but as Cisco's offerings diversify it seems to be occurring more commonly even among larger partners that have many core competencies.

"We have competency in every Cisco area, and we have dedicated resources to the core technologies as well as emerging technologies, so there are few areas that we need to partner in," Keblusek said. But, for example, Sentinel would collaborate in international telepresence services, building partnerships with companies that play in the Asia-Pacific region and in Europe. For smaller companies, services like unified communications that span across technologies often require partnerships, he added.

The problem that partners face when it comes to channel collaboration is knowing who to trust with exposure to clients and how to manage these relationships.

"We set ground rules," said Tim Hebert, CEO of Cisco partner Atrion Networking Corp. in Warwick, R.I., adding that the process is about "selecting and interviewing the right partners to work with." Hebert said the company specifically looks at the way potential partners service their clients and if they function with integrity.

Hebert is the chairman of a collaborative community of businesses called 1NService, through which an "intimate group" of companies share best practices and market strategies on an ongoing basis to deliver comprehensive technology solutions. All of the businesses in that group function on similar ethics and can trust each other, Hebert said. The Cisco exchange minimally addresses this kind of trust, he said. Like eBay, Cisco will give low marks to partners that do poor work and higher marks to those who do better, but that doesn't eliminate the need for partners to go in depth and get to know each other before jumping in.

Keblusek stressed the importance of forming contractual agreements that outline profit-sharing and noncompete arrangements. "We make sure we have a legal means to protect our investment and vice versa," Keblusek said. For partners who are just learning about collaboration, he said, there might be some anxiety involved with "just jumping on board with nothing in place."

Cisco's exchange network will live on the company's Web-based virtual environment, Cisco Partner Space, that enables virtual meetings, conferences and dialogue among Cisco's more than 8,000 partners.

Wireless signals up to 100km

Intel’s researchers have come up with a way to send Wi-Fi signals up to 60 miles (100km), while maintaining a usable throughput of up to 6.5Mbits/s.

According to MIT’s Technology Review, the system is known as the 'rural connectivity platform' (RCP) for the way it can, at relatively low cost, connect towns to out-of-the-way locations otherwise bypassed by new communication technologies.

This is to be more than a lab engineer’s daydream and has been field tested in India, Panama, Vietnam and South Africa.

The technology is innovative on a number of levels. It works using a point-to-point design, which automatically lowers cost to a quoted region of $500-$1,000 (£250-£500) for a single connection – way below rival systems such as cable broadband or satellite.

Once terminated at the remote location, the connectivity it provides could be distributed using off-the-shelf Wi-Fi hardware.

It is also low-power, using around five to six watts for a system with three radios in a link, making it possible to power it during the day from solar power or by battery during the night.

A lot of this is down to clever re-engineering of the software used by conventional Wi-Fi hardware to keep data acknowledgements to a minimum. This also has benefits for bandwidth because it shaves back-channel chatter in favour of sending and receiving usable data.

"Applying a TDMA modification to the MAC layer of standard 802.11, Intel RCP is able to achieve connection distances of up to 100km unobstructed line-of-sight," says one of the researchers. "Additionally, the relay and fork modes of operation allow for more complex topologies. So even if there are mountains or rough terrain, the connection between the base station and the rural end point can be maintained."

The main limitation on the system looks as if it is the number of obstructions and the curvature of the earth, hence the 100km limit.

Intel has a video demonstration of the system on the Intel Research Berkeley lab website.

The RCP, while hugely attractive to locations without connectivity, nevertheless looks like a low-bandwidth connection. Higher bandwidths and lower latencies would still need custom-designed wireless systems such as WiMax.

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Extricom switch wraps Wi-Fi in 802.11n blanket

Enterprise Wi-Fi vendor Extricom has launched an 802.11n switch, claiming its "blanket" Wi-Fi technology solves the power problem of the new standard, allowing a smooth transition to faster Wi-Fi.

"Other vendors' implementation plans for enterprise-class 802.11n abandon the 2.4GHz band, move to the 5GHz band, and require costly non-standard power-over-Ethernet schemes," said David Confalonieri, vice president of marketing at Extricom. Extricom's "blanket" architecture avoids all these problems, he said, and supports four radios in one access point (AP).

Although the draft 802.11n standard offers a substantial speed increase over today's Wi-Fi, most vendors have been unable to make a full implementation, using two radios and multiple antennas, which uses less electrical power than the maximum of 12.95 watts which can be provided using the power-over-Ethernet standard with which enterprises drive their APs.

Only Siemens has apparently solved the problem for a two radio access point, while other Wi-Fi vendors have offered different work-arounds including proprietary power-over-Ethernet, and tuning back the throughput of the access point.

Extricom can vault past that, because its blanket architecture - which puts all access points on the same radio channel - centralises more of the processing. "Our AP has no CPU," said Confalonieri. "We can offer four radios and use less than 6 watts." Extricom's four-radio N access point is a new version of quad-radio 802.11abg APs launched a year ago.

Despite this, Extricom suggests companies should introduce N in stages, especially in the 5GHz band which has rarely been used for Wi-Fi till now, and whose propagation differs from the normal 2.4GHz band. Extricom says its systems can provide full N coverage and support legacy 802.11b and 802.11g using only the 2.4GHz band, because every access point uses the same channels - in contrast to "cell-planning" systems from Cisco Aruba and Trapeze, where adjacent APs have to use different channels.

This leaves the 5GHz band empty for gradual deployment. "You can introduce a slow roll-out of N, without changing the real estate, until your business has clients which require 5GHz N," said Confalonieri.

“The 802.11n standard promises to play a pivotal role in finally making the all-wireless enterprise a reality,” said Stan Schatt, director of wireless connectivity at ABI Research.

“The implementation of 802.11n should be about evolution, not revolution," said Gideon Rottem, chief executive of Extricom, who has said cell-planning is the 'original sin' of Wi-Fi.

The EXRP-40En four radio access point includes two n/a/b/g radios and two a/b/g radios, which can be operated in any combination of channels and bands. The ‘n’ equipped radios support 3x3 MIMO (multiple-in, multiple-out) antenna configuration. Extricom has also launched a tri-radio AP, with two 'n' radios and one a/b/g radio.

A firmware upgrade can give existing Extricom switches the ability to support the new APs, and a new switch, the EXSW-1600 has been announced, along with an antenna bar, which can add more antennas so one AP can have up to twelve antennas on a wall-mounted bar, connected to the AP by a single cable.