A story was published last week http://www.techworld.com/mobility/features/index.cfm?featureID=3830&pagtype=samecatsamechan that delves into what I think is a rather sloppy argument from one of our competitors on 802.11n and how to deploy a dual-radio .11n AP with adequate power. We’ve taken a close look at the issue, and developed a system-level solution with Cisco Catalyst switches to autonegotiate the appropriate power to run a dual-radio 802.11n AP at full performance. Our erstwhile competitor Aruba boasts the “only 802.11n AP that operates with standard PoE.” Yet when you really take a closer look, what they mean here is that their AP can operate, but at reduced performance and capacity. Their story gets stranger when you read recent, completely inconsistent press comments from Aruba, essentially warning against 802.11n deployments altogether. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/communications/0,1000000085,39290082,00.htm The best part — there’s no sign that the company is shipping product any time soon. My other favorite competitive claim by the same folks is their new “80 Gbps controller”. Sounds great, until you realize that if you actually want to encrypt your traffic over an Aruba WLAN — and what customer wouldn’t — that same Aruba controller, which handles all encryption centrally, slows down to 16 Gbps. Kind of like looking at a speedometer — sure, 210 mph looks cool, but it doesn’t mean a thing.

Here’s the fact folks -- I’m getting married… in three months. In order to ensure that I’m going to be an awesome husband, I’ve been going to marriage class. Unfortunately, sitting in class made me regress to my younger years when I spent time honing my airplane making skills. Read More »

In my blog posting on enterprise WLAN, I talked about how the 2.4 spectrum simply does not have enough capacity for large scale deployments. My thesis was that users should really be looking to maximize the 5Ghz spectrum for their use (while recognizing that legacy devices will continue to exist in the 2.4 spectrum). Following this article, some vendors argued that existing WLAN architectures could not meet the needs of the enterprise, and the only valid architecture was one that used the same channel across all APs. They claim that a single channel architecture is the only one that can support fast roaming and provides maximum performance. In this blog series, I will explain why this is myth. Read More »

In my first episode on MIMO (What’s up with MIMO), I introduced the concept of multiple antennas and the home audio analogy. In this example, I discussed one particular mode of MIMO that transmits the same stream across all antennas, and makes use of multipath to increase the chance of correctly decoding the received signal -- thus lowering the bit error rate. This method exploits what is known as spatial diversity, which is one of the simplest method to achieve MIMO gains. But MIMO is much more than that. Read More »

When it comes to WLAN applications, small and medium businesses clearly have a different set of priorities than enterprise customers. In a much more direct way, their IT strategy (if there is one) is driven by immediate business needs. For example, I recently spoke with the administrator of a small medical group. He needs to move the clinic from a paper based operation to an electronic medical records system. His key business problem is moving paper charts around -across multiple sites. To use his words, it’s a nightmare. This medical group has no wireless network today. Security continues to be his greatest concern. However, when they do implement an EMR system in the next 6 months, it will drive the need for a pervasive, reliable, and of course secure wireless network.So how’s this different then enterprise? He’s not even thinking about niceties such as guest access, VoWLAN, location or asset tracking. His mobility application is EMR, plain and simple. He readily ticks off the benefits from improved staff productivity, more accurate records, and therefore better patient care. BTW -his most trusted technical advisor is his son. He has one outsourced, part time IT guy. And he still needs to figure out what it means to be HIPAA compliant in a wireless world.