Proxim Corporation of Sunnyvale, CA, has received
certification to become the first company to ship 802.11a-based high-speed wireless
local area network products in Europe. Nine countries (Austria, Belgium, Denmark,
Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Norway, and Portugal) will have Proxim’s 54Mbps
WLAN products available this month. Proxim expects certification to ship 802.11a
products in most of the rest of Europe by the end of 2002.
The six month delay in getting the 5GHz WLAN technology was due to the strict
certification process of the European Telecommunications Standards Institute
(ETSI) and the country-by-country applications that must be made.
"ETSI is the European version of the FCC," says Lynn Lucas, Director
of Marketing and Business Development, Proxim Corporation. "Europe has,
as they do for most radio standards, slightly different rules than the U.S.
One of the things they had was a provision that has to be implemented in 5GHz
wireless LAN products that automatically avoids other radar and communications
equipment."
Proxim had to submit its products for testing to a third party lab to make
sure they met the requirements, file a report and submit samples of the 802.11a
products to ETSI, and await confirmation. After that, each country must then
approve.
Proxim has two 802.11a product lines, each consisting of an access point, a
PCI card adapter for desktops, and a CardBus network interface card for laptops.
The Skyline products are for small business or home use, while the Harmony products
target the enterprise.
Both product lines share the 54Mbps speed, but Harmony includes more network
management features, including the Harmony AP Controller hardware which can
manage both 802.11b and 802.11a access points on the same network, as well as
RADIUS and 802.1X support and VPN tunneling.
Both product lines also feature Proxim’s proprietary 2X mode that boosts speeds
to 108Mbps, but due to restrictions, in Europe that boost is not allowed, so
the products will remain 54Mbps.
Proxim 802.11a products are currently sold in United States, Canada, Japan,
Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Philippines and Mexico.
