Pre-standard Wi-Fi 802.11n products are entering the marketplace, but consumers are warned to beware before buying. While investment risks for home networking products run fairly low — about $150 or less — users should know that uncertified equipment may not be interoperable with upcoming certified components. Early tests report ‘draft N” performance as less than… Continue Reading
Monthly Archives: May 2006
Storage Goes Wi-Fi With Iomega NAS
Iomega has dived into the wireless NAS market. The StorCenter Wireless boasts an impressive 1 terabyte of storage capacity. The unit, along with it’s wireless capability has a pair of USB ports for extra drives or for a printer using the units own internal print server. At $900 it’s quite a decent way to get… Continue Reading
Philly Wi-Fi Project Passes Final Hurdle
A Philadelphia city council committee gave its nod to a WiFi project that will see Earthlink’s equipment installed on 4,000 city-owned utility poles. The full city council is set to vote on May 11 and the decision is expected to favor the project. Once it gets the final approval, Earthlink plans to start construction a… Continue Reading
AirMagnet Rolls Out Voice-Over-Wi-Fi Analysis Tool
AirMagnet is offering a new network analysis tool to help network managers identify voice problems over wireless networks. The AirMagnet VoFi Analyzer can detect these problems in real time, keep track of voice traffic from one device to another, and determine if both wireless APs and wire-side devices are configured just right. The company said… Continue Reading
Qualcomm Signs First Patent Deal For WiMAX Product
In what will probobly become a big speedbump for WiMax, Qualcomm quietly announced a licensing deal for technology necessary for WiMax that it owns the patent on. This appears to mean that any vendor making a WiMax product will have to pay a licensing fee to Qualcomm, who have a history of defending a licensing… Continue Reading
Linux Gets Native WiFi Support
Devicescape Software seems to have seen the light and realized that helping the open source world is in it’s best interests. The company has donated technology to allow for native support of WiFi in linux. No word on which chipsets or what exactly the technology is, but given the difficulty in getting support from manufacturers,… Continue Reading
Google Wi-Fi Deal Gains Powerful Critics
The Google/Earthlink plan to unwire San Francisco is meeting with some serious opposition. While groups like the ACLU and the EFF applaud the economic and social benifits of the plan, but also have grave concerns about the privacy of the system. The latest person to step up with concerns is city supervisor Jake McGoldrick. No… Continue Reading
Wireless-N Could Stand For ‘Not Interoperable’
Interoperability is key to the newly-available Wireless-N products using 802.11n draft specifications. Since the standard they’re based on isn’t yet official, users shouldn’t be swayed by promises such as four times the range and 12 times the throughput of current 802.11g standard products. While products based on the final 802.11n standard may meet those speed… Continue Reading
Cisco, Motorola Abandon Wi-Fi/Cellular Venture
This year’s plan for a “seamless” cellular/WiFi roaming technology partnership between Cisco Systems Inc. and Motorola turned out to be not so seamless, so a new generation of fixed/mobile convergence devices won’t be coming your way until at least 2007. The devices are predicted to allow handsets to roam seamlessly between WiFi and cellular networks… Continue Reading
Experts Raise Health Concerns Over WiFi
Headaches, fatigue, irritability and lack of concentration can be caused by many things, but disturbing new evidence points to your Wi-Fi network as a suspect. Studies estimate about two to three percent of the population may be “electrosensitive” to the emissions from wireless access points and other electromagnetic devices. Precautionary advice from the Health Protection… Continue Reading
Residential Wi-Fi Sharing Made Easy
Researchers at the the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have developed a new technology that will allow neighbors to share bandwidth without having to worry of security or privacy threats. The 1MB Practical End-host collaborative Residential Multihoming (PERM) software file is now downloadable and can be accessed by users with broadband subscriptions. Haiyun Luo, an… Continue Reading
Vonage Gets WiFi Coverage For WiFi Phones In UK
Vonage users in the U.K. can now make free phone calls so long as they are within The Cloud hotspot. If they however wander outside the coverage, the calls will be dropped off. Vonage Managing Director Kerry Ritz deemed the new service “a wake-up call for the telecoms market,” as “it’s saying there’s really a… Continue Reading
Lack Of Common Spectrum Will Hinder WiMAX
A lack of harmony between different countried available spectrum could hinder or even hurt WiMAx. The nearly universal availability of the 2.4Ghz spectrum is likely one of it’s strong points. WiMax does’nt have that availability. If countries don’t have a common spectrum allocation, manufacturers will have to make many different radios. This means more cost… Continue Reading
Internet Designer Sees Big Things For Wireless Broadband
Vint Cerf, VP and Internet evangelist at Google, asserts that broadband service providers could use some competition. Cerf, who helped create the foundations for today’s Internet, says cable modems from cable companies, along with DSL lines from wireline phone companies, are the two most common Internet access technologies, yet both are mostly inadequate for the… Continue Reading
Google Won’t Do Silicon Valley Wi-Fi
Google will not join the competition for the establishment of a Wi-Fi Silicon Valley in San Francisco. Google spokeswoman Megan Quinn said the company has no intention to respond to a request for proprosals for the $200 million project, which is due on June 30. The Wireless Silicon Valley Task Force is looking for one… Continue Reading