Thursday, May 15, 2008 8:14 PM/EST

The Port of Richmond Is Watching

This week, I took a tour of the port of Richmond, Calif., where ADT Security Services was showing off the brand-new video surveillance system it put together to monitor the port against intruders, theft or possible terrorist action -- utilizing an all-wireless network to move data from all the cameras back to the centralized video analytic equipment.

Thursday, May 01, 2008 4:09 PM/EST

Interop's WLAN Architecture Debate

At the Interop conference in Las Vegas May 1, I sat in on a pretty fascinating panel discussion called "The Great WLAN Architectural Debate" that brought together representatives from five enterprise-grade wireless LAN companies -- ostensibly to compare and contrast their technology with that of their competitors, particularly in regard to 802.11n. Moderated by IDC's Abner Germanow, the discussion allowed each vendor the opportunity to highlight its differentiators on both the wired and wireless sides of the network -- and to take some pointed potshots at its competitors in the process.

The panelists were:

Kurt Sauter - Xirrus

Keerti Melkote - Aruba Networks

Luc Roy - Siemens

Adam Conway - Aerohive Networks

David Confalonieri - Extricom

Below is my perception of what was said during the panel. It's not a direct transcript, since I don't type nearly fast enough for that, so I may have missed some points here or there. Nonetheless, what follows captures the spirit of what turned out the be a fascinating and lively debate.

Tuesday, April 29, 2008 12:46 PM/EST

AirMagnet's 802.11n Planning and Analysis Tools

As anticipated, the first WLAN planning and analysis tools made their way into the light at the Interop show in Las Vegas, as AirMagnet announced 802.11n support for both its Survey Pro and Laptop Analyzer Pro applications. Full 802.11n analysis will require new hardware, so AirMagnet also announced its new Wireless PC Card.

All three products can be purchased as a package for $7,305 or separately: Laptop Analyzer Pro ($3,995), Survey Pro ($3,695) and the Wireless PC Card ($150). Fortunately, current customers of Laptop Analyzer Pro or Survey Pro with up-to-date service contracts can download the 11n-capable versions for free.

AirMagnet's tools try to blend the theory and the practice of 802.11n wireless networks, including tools that aim to provide its customers with theoretical advice on 802.11n propagation in order to help them purchase the right 11n-capable infrastructure devices and then the right tools to manage and troubleshoot the network after it is deployed.

For instance, Analyzer Pro includes a Device Calculator that allows wireless administrators looking to buy new 802.11n equipment to enter the configurations options they would like to use (like short guard interval, channel width, frame size and protection scheme) -- and then the tool will spit out characteristics like maximum data rate, number of spatial streams and modulation coding schemes supported by various vendors. Of course, this information is based on the specifications published by the vendor rather than real detections, so expectations should be tempered.

Predeployment, wireless administrators can also scan their existing legacy networks to build a good map of current coverage and then drop in simulated 11n access points to the network to predict the impact of the new devices when placed in various locations.

AirMagnet is pushing the predeployment use of active surveys, in which the survey machine joins and actively uses the wireless LAN while conducting the scan. Passive surveying will be insufficient for 802.11n networks because a passive scanner cannot accurately measure the effects of spatial multiplexing used by MIMO (multiple input, multiple output) technologies or for devices using beam-forming antenna technologies. AirMagnet's tools can also provide different information based on the intended usage scenario -- whether the network will be deployed supporting only 802.11n or, more likely, with support for legacy devices.

For use once 802.11n is deployed, AirMagnet introduced tools like Analyzer Pro's Efficiency Tool, which helps the wireless administrator determine where the network is not operating in High Throughput mode and gives detailed explanations of the various 11n features and options that could be causing the problems. AirMagnet's tools also include a copy of the NLANR (National Laboratory for Applied Network Research) Iperf throughput measurement tool, so administrators can conduct on-the-spot performance measurements.

All three products should be available on May 6. I will provide an update on how the products perform in the labs once I can get my hands on them.

Wednesday, April 02, 2008 12:39 PM/EST

Live-Blogging the Yahoo Mobile CTIA Keynote

Wednesday at the CTIA show in Las Vegas, Yahoo! Mobile's President Marco Boerries will be giving a keynote speech "articulating the company's vision for leading and enabling the global mobile ecosystem." According to the early press notification I received, Boerries will talk about talk about new "game-changing" innovation to Yahoo! OneSearch.

Below is a live-blog account of the keynote:

Wednesday, March 19, 2008 2:16 AM/EST

Polycom Entices Small Business to Voice over Wi-Fi

At the VON.x conference in San Jose, Calif., Polycom let me play with their latest voice over Wi-Fi phone -- the Polycom SpectraLink 8002 Wireless Telephone. Intended for small-business customers, the phone is intended to be easier to set up and manage -- and cost significantly less -- than its higher-end SpectraLink cousins.

Designed to work with SIP-based voice systems, the 8002 has been certified interoperable with Digium's Asterisk Business Edition IP PBX and is expected to work just as well on any of the other Asterisk distributions available nowadays.

The 8002, which costs $349 (or $399 with a dual charger and an extra battery), weighs in at 4.2 ounces and is rated for 3 hours of talk time or 50 hours of standby time.

The Wi-Fi radio in the 8002 is only 802.11b, so the customer needs to make sure legacy protocol support is enabled on the Wi-Fi network. Built to work easily on the consumer-grade access points often found in the smallest businesses, the phone also only supports WEP and the PSK versions of WPA or WPA2 for wireless privacy. And for wireless quality of service, the 8002 supports WMM but not the SVP protocol that SpectraLink pioneered for higher-end wireless networks.

Device configuration looks like it can be done a couple of ways, but honestly it seemed like none of the Polycom people I talked to at the show quite knew the full story. Here's what I can decipher:

• The phone supports TFTP, so the SIP configuration can be downloaded directly to the phone when it joins the network.

• Wireless network configuration can be done either directly on the handset via the keypad or, alternatively, via a PC when the phone is connected to an administrator dock that is USB-tethered to the computer. It does seem that this admin dock is a different device than the charging cradle that comes with the phone.

Polycom also claimed that the 8002 offers text messaging via support for Open Application Interface v2.0, but they did not have this feature set up on the demo unit I played with, so I cannot verify this at this time.

Polycom's people also briefed me on the same video integration with Microsoft's Office Communications Server 2007 and IP application suite that Paula Musich reported on. I won't rehash, but will add a couple of additional details Polycom provided in response to my questions:

• The suite of applications will only work on Polycom's SoundPoint IP 550 and 650 phones for the time being.

• The call recording capabilities do not yet include any kind of audio notification to the participants on the call, but the feature has been requested and development is in the works.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008 4:38 PM/EST

More Details on the Duke 802.11n Deployment

After reading Cisco's press release and many of the news reports about Duke University's gigantic 802.11n deployment, I found many of my questions were left unanswered. So Cisco put me in touch with Duke's Kevin Miller, assistant director of Communications Infrastructure, whom I quickly peppered with some more questions about the deployment.

Duke's 802.11n network, which will be a replacement for an existing 802.11a/b/g network, will also utilize both the 5GHz and 2.4GHz bands -- with both bands offering backward compatibility. For the 5GHz band, the university will utilize wide 40MHz channels while continuing to use 20MHz channels in the 2.4GHz band.

To Miller's recollection, the 130M-bps wireless throughput rating that was initially reported for Duke's 802.11n network represented performance in the 5GHz band.

I also asked Miller about his expectations for how the network will perform under load from a mix of 802.11n and legacy traffic, and he revealed some surprising findings about the client ratio they are currently seeing.

"For some hard data, we are going to have to wait and see as the network rolls out. In our pilot area, we see very high use of 11g, but we also see, on average, about 40 percent of the clients are connecting via 802.11n. The Pilot area is a first-year residence hall and typically we see a lot of new hardware coming in with new students, and laptops manufactured for about a year now have had 11n capabilities," Miller said.

He continued, "Really my next biggest investigation in going to be looking at the three generations we support -- 11b, 11g, 11n -- and trying to minimize the 11b clients first to protect the space a little more. To identify if and when there is an opportunity to discontinue supporting 11b. We know there are devices today that require supporting 11b, but they are dwindling over time."

I also asked Miller about his team's -- and the university's -- plans for helping educate the students and users about the new network, and to help manage expectations for just what the network should be able to do.

Miller said, "We are working closely with our computer store, as well as with administrators across campus, and making sure they understand not just the headline, but what are the impacts and what does it mean in terms of computer purchases and configurations."

He continued, "We are working with departments and IT administrators throughout campus, and we are adding information to students' incoming packets. In April we send out packets of information to incoming students with a plethora of information about Duke -- not just our IT -- but everything about the university. Certainly one of the aspects in there will be the availability of the 11n network and what sort of things to look for when purchasing laptops."

Miller said he also sees mobile devices with Wi-Fi inside to be of growing importance on the network, but laptops for now represent most of the wireless clients he is seeing.

Lastly, we discussed Duke's plans for POE (power over Ethernet) support. These plans call for every access point to be powered via POE, a process that will require a gradual rollout of power in excess of that supported by the current 802.3af standard. Initially, Duke will target the highest priority areas and those areas with the greatest client density, then gradually upgrade support throughout the network.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008 5:06 PM/EST

San Francisco's Dueling Muni Wi-Fi Clouds

Since EarthLink killed off San Francisco's muni Wi-Fi project in 2007 after EarthLink CEO Rolla Huff took a long, cold look at the economics of the company's municipal plans, two grass-roots municipal efforts have been slowly percolating toward prominence in its stead.

While neither network has gained citywide popularity by any means, networks powered by Meraki and FON have come tantalizing close to being interesting, particularly in a few localized neighborhoods. The Meraki network seems to have the strongest presence in the Mission and in the Haight, and Meraki currently claims almost 50,000 users across the city. Meanwhile, the FON network is far less centralized, featuring a smattering of hot-spot locations deployed thinly throughout many areas of the city.

The differences in coverage can be directly attributed to the underlying technological approaches -- and the marketing campaigns built to support them.

Meraki's network is a mesh -- users can host either an access location that has a broadband backhaul connection or an outdoor repeater for those who wish to extend the network without adding any bandwidth to it. Since Meraki is offering free repeaters to those willing to host them, neighborhoods with a couple backhauls can quickly grow in size as others add free repeaters to broaden and saturate the network's reach.

Back in 2006, FON kick-started its San Francisco network with a free router giveaway in Union Square, but in part because the marketing focus wasn't localized to a particular neighborhood, the network grew up in smatterings spread throughout the city. Technologically, this doesn't matter -- the FON hot spots really don't have anything to do with one another (other than sharing an authentication system). But from the perspective of the user, a diffuse network like this doesn't have a lot of value because there is no predictability about where it will appear.

Likely in response to this perception, FON this week announced a new router giveaway targeting businesses and residents in a single neighborhood -- the Castro.

My executive editor, Jason Brooks, is always scrounging around looking for more and better connectivity to feed his baby (a new iPod Touch), and had been investigating all the different Wi-Fi options within the city. He has expressed particular interest in both of these networks as ways to stay connected affordably (he is also weighing the pros and cons of the T-Mobile hot-spot network). Together, we decided that eWEEK Labs could (nay, should) share some of our test network bandwidth so we could take part in both of these networks (and let him wander around the city with more more Wi-Fi power).

However, our first steps have been a little rocky in both cases.

In Meraki's case, the problem is simple. We wanted to install a Meraki repeater as the first step of our deployment, but we cannot detect any other Meraki nodes from our building. The Meraki map shows the nearest nodes are between three and five blocks away -- which standard Wi-Fi clients are unable to detect, despite our location on the 9th floor of our building. Meraki may be offering repeaters for free to those willing to host them, but with the caveat that you have to be able to detect another Meraki device before they will send it to you. So instead, we'll have to acquire an indoor router or wait until someone closer to us adds to the network.

As for FON, I actually picked up a La Fonera router at the Union Square giveaway, but the device found its way into a desk drawer where it sat neglected until last week when I finally got around to registering for a FON user account. As I was installing the router, I noticed that the device firmware was several versions behind the build available on the FON Web site, so I decided to upgrade it to the latest and greatest before linking the device to my account.

As the upgrade was underway, the network cable attached to the device tangled with the wheels of my chair, which I discovered only as I rolled backwards and wrenched the patch cable from the device. End result? A dead router. The device never can seem to register for an IP address on my network, nor will it broadcast any Wi-Fi signals.

FON support confirmed my suspicions. The router is dead. However, I was surprised to learn that I was not supposed to upgrade the device at all, at least not without talking to a support representative first.

"I am afraid to tell you that your Fonera is dead. Regardless of the Internet cable coming out of the unit, the firmware update would have killed your La Fonera either way. That's why when you visit the Firmware update page and manually download it, we warn you that you should only download the firmware after consulting a FON customer care member or technician. This is because any perfectly functional Fonera will immediately become nonfunctional after the download, unless you have a Fonera+ which automatically downloads the upgraded firmwares. Manual firmware updates are one of the major contributors to nonfunctional Foneras."

I don't actually recall seeing that warning message when I did the install, but when I went back to double-check after support chastised me, indeed there was the warning. Obviously, I blew it off as the boilerplate that usually comes with firmware upgrades. But FON really, really means it. I have to say I really question the wisdom of placing the firmware so prominently on the Web site, since it is so dangerous. It seems like an unnecessary invitation for trouble. Nonetheless, I can't deny it -- I was warned.

Thankfully, FON support agreed to replace the device under warranty, so hopefully our little Wi-Fi project can get underway for real this time.

Tuesday, January 08, 2008 4:19 AM/EST

CES: The 10 O'Clock Flat Tire

The first day of CES saw some cool wireless developments (new chip sets, more 802.11n), and a major reawakening of the personal NAS space (everyone under the sun seems to have an appliance coming soon). The day was also marred by bad shoes and some unfortunate static discharge.

Of the non-visual accounts, SanDisk showed me its technology preview of a 12GB MicroSD card. Yes, it works. However, SanDisk isn't going to sell it. The company is just proving it can, and will wait until the next step up (16GB) to release a product.

And now for some pictures:

I've got a review of the Syspine version of Microsoft's Response Point coming online any day now. Here's the D-Link iteration: DVX-2000MS Appliance (top), DPH-124MS (middle) and DVG-3104MS Analog Trunk Gateway (bottom).

Mio was showing its concept design of integrated GPS and Tri-band phone. Big deal, you say? This one is two-faced, hence the name Dual-Sided NAV Phone.

Netgear announced 18 new products at CES this year. I'm going to talk about the wireless stuff in a separate post later, but Netgear also had some new NAS appliances. Lots of protocol support (Samba, NFS, Bonjour), and xRaid technology to autoconfigure the RAID, allowing online volume expansion. At top, the four-bay RND4000 ReadyNAS NV+. At bottom, the two-bay RND2150 ReadyNAS Duo.

The Nokia booth was bustling with activity every time I passed, as the booth had many display units available for hands-on play (very Apple Store). However, all that traffic was really messing with the carpet in Nokia's booth, which was shedding like long-haired cat. After scooting across the carpet to try out a phone, I got a huge static shock as I picked up the device -- causing me to scurry away before I could find out whether I had killed it.

During a chat with folks from the Wi-Fi Alliance, I was shown this sample of a new 802.11n chip set meant for mobile phones. Atheros and Broadcom aren't showing any mobile-N chips (I talked with them), but RedPine is.

Otterbox has some new ruggedized cases for the iPhone. This one, which has a hardened shell under a separate rubber skin, took me almost 10 minutes to crack open. There's also a waterproof one.

Zyxel was showing the new version of its WiMax base station for Sprint (top, middle). The booth people didn't seem wild about the fact that I kept calling it "the coffee maker." Zyxel also has a new version of its SIP phone (bottom).

At Showstoppers, I ran into Yoggie -- whose original device I quite liked last year. Now Yoggie has announced a slimmed-down, firewall-only device called the FireStick Pico.

Before my day really got started, my shoe completely fell apart even though I've only worn that pair four or five times so far. Thankfully, the good folks at Broadcom were handy with the duct tape.

Thursday, December 13, 2007 2:42 PM/EST

Raketu iPhone Follow-Up

Updating yesterday's post about Raketu's Flash-based Voice over IP application for the iPhone, I've been trying to get an answer from the company about why on earth they would release a Flash-based program for a device that does not, and currently can not, support Flash.

Has anyone over there actually ever used an iPhone or an iTouch? This shortcoming is not news.

In lieu of an answer, I received word from Raketu that they have updated the http://iphone.raketu.com webpage to a non-Flash version by default (which is the same thing as the http://raketu.mobi link I looked at yesterday) to avoid confusion.

Just for kicks, I used my PC to take a look at the Flash version of the site, to see if anything was substantively different than the non-Flash-enabled page.

Short answer? Not really.

I could place the same kind of station to station calls as before, although the Flash version actually tells me how much it costs.

Or I could send an email (for free).

Or an SMS (for 5 cents domestically).

It is worth noting that you must configure your Raketu profile with your correct email address in order to receive replies from messages sent via Raketu. Otherwise, any replies will simply disappear into the ether - or in our case, annoy Raketu's support personnel (my default email address was support@raketu.com for some reason.)

SMS on the other hand, seems to send messages only from "839-60" instead of the mobile phone number I configured in my profile. So at this time, it does not look like anyone can respond to an SMS sent via Raketu.

*Update: According to Raketu support the SMS problem "is a problem with carriers in the USA. If you send the SMS to someone for example in London, it will pick up the correct number. Unfortunately, we cannot adjust this. If you send it to Canadian phone it works also fine...the problem is JUST US carriers."

Wednesday, December 12, 2007 6:28 PM/EST

Raketu's iPhone VoIP Tease

I was pretty excited to see Raketu's announcement yesterday of a Web-based VOIP (voice over IP) service that works for Apple's iPhone or iTouch handheld devices. Visions of unlimited VOIP calls over Wi-Fi danced through my head with sudden surplusses of rollover minutes in my future. Unfortunately, the service is not quite what I expected.

When I used my iPhone's Safari browser to visit Raketu's website at http://iphone.raketu.com, all I could see was a tiny blue Lego with a couple of question marks on it. Apparently, you need Flash installed to view Raketu's iPhone site, which is pretty funny since the IPHONE DOESN'T SUPPORT FLASH!!!

Here's what the site would look like if the iPhone supported Flash:

Raketu's PR guy told me to try their mobile site, www.raketu.mobi, which provides access to their web-based platform, RakWeb. From there, I could not place a VoIP call using my iPhone (as I had hoped this meant), but rather I could use RakWeb to initiate a VoIP-enabled phone call between two different numbers. For instance, I could have RakWeb my dial my AT&T number (for my iPhone) and then my eWeek desktop phone into a two-party VoIP-enabled conference. RakWeb would dial one number, then the second. Then presto! A phone call.

Still uses my mobile minutes, though.

While I can't say I actually found the service useful at present, but it seems like a good way to connect random people together in a conversation without telling them in advance. Like taking blind dating to stalkerish extreme.

Rakweb does offer some interesting SMS options, but I can't say I've ever been prodigious enough with the texting to go beyond my standard allotment.

(On a side note, I beg you, Raketu, please code your download page to render properly in Firefox. Please?!!?!)