Eric Griffith

While the term “wireless LAN switch” has been bandied about for well over a year now in the industry, Cisco Systems today announced what it calls “the first true wireless-aware enterprise-class Ethernet switch.” The company has introduced the Wireless LAN Services Module (WLSM), which integrates with Cisco’s multilayer Catalyst 6500 Series switch. The USD$18,000 hardware […]

VeriWave of Portland, Ore. has been in business for a couple of years, but is just getting around to putting out its first product, the WaveTest System. That patience might pay off for major vendors of Wi-Fi equipment looking to make sure their products are up to snuff. “Every new market requires some kind of […]

Everyone’s talking about the WiMax standard for wireless metropolitan area networks (wireless MANs) — so much so that people forget that the technology, based on IEEE 802.16, isn’t even here yet. The question for the companies planning to support WiMax is: who’ll be first? For to the victor of that race go not only the […]

Netopia of Emeryville, Calif., has for some time now provided gateway products for carriers and ISPs to give to home users that include built in Wi-Fi. Now the company is turning its expertise to the hotspot market. The company’s turnkey product and service combo will let carriers become wireless ISPs by providing the hardware to […]

It’s the dirty little secret of a multi-million dollar industry: Even though everyone is embracing wireless LANs, they are still ridiculously difficult to setup. Especially for the layman who doesn’t know his SSID from his elbow. Chipmaker Broadcom hopes to rectify the setup headaches for consumer wireless users with the introduction of SecureEZSetup (SEZS) — […]

The cost for companies to get a “Wi-Fi Certified” stamp of approval from the Wi-Fi Alliance on 802.11-based products isn’t cheap. The annual membership fee for companies is $25,000 alone, and to get certification testing the average cost starts at $5,000 per product tested — rates can go higher based on the type of product, […]

Say you’ve got a management system for your wireless LAN from Wavelink, an authentication security system using 802.1X server and clients from Funk Software, and security and monitoring components from AirMagnet. How do you make them work together? Supposedly, you don’t have to do anything. The three companies mentioned above are entering into partnerships for […]

Companies like Vonage, BroadVoice and Viper Networks are making a lot of noise about selling Wi-Fi-based voice services to customers. Voice over IP (VoIP) pioneer Net2Phone is taking its new Wi-Fi phone service directly to the carriers. “We are not a direct-to-consumer company,” says Sarah Hofstetter, Net2Phone’s senior vice president of corporate communications. “We enable […]

Toshiba America Information Systems (TAIS) of Irvine, Calif., the company behind the Toshiba SurfHere hotspot initiative to provide wholesale Wi-Fi networks, has signed to hand over its existing and under-contract hotspots to the major wholesaler, Cometa Networks, headquartered in Schaumburg, Ill. “We are not deploying any more hotspots,” says Chris Harrington, vice president, strategy and […]

Semiconductor maker Marvell of Sunnyvale, Calif., makers of the Libertas line of wireless chips, has unveiled a platform featuring a system-on-a-chip (SoC) that puts multiple wireless functions into a single device. Marvell calls its new technology All-into-1. The first release of the platform includes a reference design Marvell created called 5-in-1 that would allow a […]

Most wired backhaul connections to the Internet, be they T1 down to a cable or DSL line, use a standard 10/100Mbps Ethernet connection — plug it into your wired or wireless network and you’re connected (to put it in the most simplistic terms possible). So what happens for those lucky enough to pull in a […]

In general, a hotspot setup with nothing more than a broadband connection and an off-the-shelf wireless router — even from a leading company like Cisco’s Linksys division — is derided by many as insecure and lacking the robustness needed for public access. Maybe not anymore. Linksys is the new linchpin of a new Hot Spot […]