Wireless LAN equipment maker Trapeze Networks has been busy lately, and this week the company demonstrated "seamless" mobility between a Wi-Fi network and a cellular network.
In reading our recent newsletter comments about the implications of fixed mobile convergence in general and converged Wi-Fi/mobile handsets in particular, one reader who attended CTIA observed that: "Unlicensed Mobile Access-enabled handsets are going to be able to deliver the advanced multimedia applications that are being announced at the major industry tradeshows. It seems there is still a bit of confusion about UMA and IMS [IP Multimedia Subsystem] and whether they are complementary or competitive tech
Dave Stephenson is at the center of one of the most important efforts in mobile networking, the move to shepherd smartphones and other devices among Wi-Fi hotspots safely and automatically.
IEEE 802.11i, the standard behind Wi-Fi Protected Access and WPA 2, patched the holes in the original Wired Equivalent Privacy specification by introducing new cryptographic algorithms to protect data traveling across a wireless network. Now, the 802.11w task group is looking at extending the protection beyond data to management frames, which perform the core operations of a network.
Every once in a while you just have to step back and admire how quickly wireless LAN technology is taking over the world. In the last couple of weeks, Network World has happened to run several stories that illustrate the trend very nicely.
Adtran rolled out a series of Ethernet switches for the SMB market that are more power efficient, higher density and Wi-Fi "friendly" than previous generation platforms.
What we need is a national networking policy. We need to encourage community networking, Wi-Fi and ISPs. We need to find a way to let the telcos s쳮d and provide what we need. The policy needs to be business and consumer friendly, it needs to create a competitive market and it needs to happen soon. If it doesn't, and we don't get America online and up and running, we risk becoming uncompetitive and missing out on the social and economic benefits of being a connected culture.
At last week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Skype and Netgear announced they are working on a family of products, including the world's first Skype wireless mobile telephone and a router equipped to optimize Skype.
Last week, we pointed out that with services like Sprint’s Airave and T-Mobile’s HotSpot @Home, callers can use their mobile handset connected to a femtocell or Wi-Fi router to place a voice call using the Internet for access to the PSTN. Under these two plans, minutes of use don’t count against the subscriber’s usage. But, as with any new service a few issues remain to be solved. For example, how can caller locations be identified for E-911 services when users roam between a femtocell, Wi-Fi, and
Broadband service providers of all types have begun to roll their VoIP services out to a wider audience within their customer base – providing services to both residential and business customers. This isn’t big news – VoIP , of course, has been happening for several years – but the big players (RBOCs, cable MSOs and other national service providers) are moving ahead at a rapid pace these days.
On Oct. 15, start-up Agito Networks entered the exciting enterprise fixed-mobile convergence (eFMC) market. As John Dix pointed out in his article Cell/Wi-Fi convergence based on novel approach, Agito is using a new approach to determine when a mobile phone call should be switched from a cellular network to your enterprise WLAN when moving in building, and vice versa when you leave the enterprise.
While wireless technologies (Wi-Fi, WiMAX, MIMO, et al) grab industry attention, a good cheap Ethernet switch is still the building block for most networks. SMC and Asante this week added new products to the latter category.
Last month, Agito Networks unveiled a new line of enterprise mobility products that use Wi-Fi and cellular networks to help enterprise users reduce their cellular expenses. The company’s approach is also designed to help medium and large enterprise customers integrate Agito’s fixed mobile convergence (FMC) enterprise mobility solution with an overall VoIP deployment.
Wi-Fi is blossoming in the enterprise, proving critical, as it is, to the agile, mobile workforce, and new technologies like gigabit Wi-Fi ensure the capabilities keep up with exploding demand. We assess the developments and emerging trends, and chart out where we're going next.