WildPackets, the company behind the AiroPeek wireless packet analyzers, has
upgraded its support for Atheros-based 802.11a in time to become the tool of
choice in the California lab behind Wi-Fi interoperability testing.
The San Jose, CA-based lab of Agilent’s
Interoperability Certification Labs (ICL) will be using AiroPeek NX, the
professional version of WildPacket’s product that adds real time analysis and
problem solving functions to the packet analysis products, as part of its test
bed for interoperability testing of 5GHz 802.11a-based products for the Wi-Fi
Alliance.
Agilent is one of the third-part facilities used the Wi-Fi Alliance to test the interoperability of
Wi-Fi products. 802.11b-based products have been receiving certification from
the industry group for some time, but 802.11a-based products will only start
testing at the end of this month.
Janice Spampinato, executive vice president of sales and marketing at WildPackets
says that "Airopeek has been in use in three of the four [Agilent] labs
for some time. It’ll now be used in the San Jose lab specifically for the compliance
work they’re doing on 802.11a." Agilent ICL labs are currently run in the
UK, Asia, and Japan.
The AiroPeek NX driver for 802.11a products using the Atheros chip set has been
available since
earlier this year. The new driver, version v1.4.0.44, resolves issues such as
system failures on some IBM ThinkPad R30 notebooks, inability to restore DHCP
services on tested cards, potential system failures during installation with
some Intel Pro 802.11a cards, and other problems. The driver
is available for free from the WildPackets support site.
That’s a lot of work done in the last few months for a company that lost its
headquarters in a devastating after-hours fire. WildPackets has been in temporary digs since July and
will finally be moving into new offices in Walnut Creek, CA ("a stones’
throw away" say Spampinato, from the former building).
Even in July, WildPackets PR Specialist Ronnie Holland said the company knew
before the fire it was in need of more space — fo course, the company’s new
digs are 50% larger than the previous, destroyed building.
