News
Issue #2003 - 31 (December 2003)
(Updated Dec. 16, 2003)

INFRASTRUCTURE, PRODUCTS & SERVICES

WiFi News This Biweekly Period

1. GRIC Tries to Consolidate Hotspots Customer Service
At Wi-Fi Planet in San Jose, one of the key issues up for discussion is how Wi-Fi for business users continues to be a challenge due to lack of data security and the inability to roam from service to service. For the enterprise particularly, gaining control over the growing complexity of remote access and the associated costs is a vexing problem. 

GRIC Communications is the first to provide a reliable, easy to use solution for business Wi-Fi with the world's largest access network of more than 300 top-tier service providers featuring more than 35,000 wired and wireless access points in over 150 countries. This effectively eliminates the need to sign-up with multiple Wi-Fi service providers while slashing management, support, and administrative costs. In addition, security that integrates with VPN and firewall solutions maximizes the productivity of mobile and remote workers while protecting enterprise assets. 

GRIC is also announcing an agreement with SingTel Mobile to provide SingTel Mobile's one million customers with Wi-Fi service powered by GRIC. We'd like to discuss Wi-Fi for business with you at Booth #419. Can we set up a time to have a brief conversation with you at the show? If you are out of the Bay Area I can arrange a phone briefing for you.

2. China's Comes up With A Different WiFi Standard - Controlled by 11 Companies
The Chinese government ruled that foreign vendors seeking to sell WiFi equipment in the country will only be able to acquire China's WLAN technology from 11 designated firms. Among the authorized companies are PC maker Legend Holdings and telecom equipment company Huawei Technologies. The Chinese government now insists that foreign WLAN vendors adhere to the Chinese WiFi standard. The standard, called GB15629.11-2003, is similar to 802.11 but uses a different security protocol, called WAPI (WLAN Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure). The Chinese standard went into effect on December 1, but the compliance deadline for foreign companies has been extended to June 1, 2004. 

Newly issued regulations by the Chinese government have U.S. officials and businesses concerned. The regulations that require 11 Chinese equipment makers to deal with their competitors to get access to the encryption standards required for wireless networks might pose a negative impact on bilateral trade between the Asian nation and the U.S. The standard, known as Wired Equivalent Privacy, is often used for Internet connections in public spaces, such as hotels, coffee shops and airports. (Source: AP) 

3. Intel & Cisco Scare Wi-Fi Mesh Startups With Standards
Source Mobile Pipeline
By Rick Merritt, EE Times via Mobile Pipeline

Engineers from Cisco Systems Inc. and Intel Corp. are trying to kick off an effort to standardize mesh networks, one of the hottest new segments in wireless. The move comes as a handful of startups are hitting the market with proprietary mesh networking technologies embedded in their homegrown ASICs and software. 

A study group for a mesh standard will have its first meeting in January at the next IEEE 802 meeting in Vancouver, according to Steve Conner, a wireless engineer in Intel's corporate R&D labs who is helping organize the event. Conner and Peter Eccelsine, a corporate R&D engineer at Cisco, helped organize the group which is open to any 802 members. 

Some analysts and observers applauded news of the move, but a handful of startups rolling out their own mesh approaches including BelAir Networks (Kanata, Ontario), Firetide (Los Gatos, Calif.) and Strix Systems (Westlake Village, Calif.) expressed doubts such a standard will succeed. 

Wireless meshes, typically self-configuring ad hoc networks of 802.11 access points, have become a hot topic with the rapid rise of wireless LANs. Meshes are seen as quick and easy ways for both businesses and public hot spot operators to stitch together many small 802.11 networks into much larger ones. But mesh network products coming to market from more than half dozen companies are not interoperable. "My fear is that over time this will lead to a fragmented market," said Conner of Intel. 

The standard could also deliver a more efficient means of mesh networking for 802.11 nets than currently exists, he added. "The 802.11 protocol was not designed with mesh as a primary use, the MAC [media access controller] is inefficient across multiple hops, and my fear is most meshes would be inefficient and waste the spectrum available," said Conner. A standard could define a way to capture and control network statistics to assist mesh links or even provide a full-blown mesh protocol. The January meeting will be the first attempt by a study group to define what areas a standard should address as part of a subsequent IEEE task group. The entire effort could take three years, said Conner who is developing at Intel a mesh protocol that could span 802.11 and ultrawideband networks. "It's not too early to be starting a standards effort in this area," said Craig Mathias, a consultant for Farpoint Group (Ashland, Mass.). "Meshes represent probably the next great architecture going forward in wireless. They solve problems in availability, reliability, load balancing, performance and throughput, though they do exact a toll in power," Mathias added. 

"A standard for meshes is a great idea," agreed Roger Durand, director of RF systems architecture for Propagate Networks (Acton, Mass.), a developer of software that enables mesh networking on Atheros 802.11 chip sets. "Mesh networking is great for anything mobile on a large scale like emergency services or smart highways, things some people say are still pie-in-the-sky but are really just over the next hill," he added. 

Many startups in the field disagreed about the need for a mesh standard. "It sounds good but it's not so easy," said Bob Jordan, vice president of marketing for Strix Systems. The startup started shipping for business users in July small, stackable 802.11 access points that form mesh networks. The company claims its systems use a unique discovery algorithm that constantly polls the throughput, error rate, latency and other features of RF links to make sure they are creating an optimal mesh while using only one percent of the net's bandwidth for the polling. 

"It's become a very interesting engineering problem to run a mesh, but if you create a standard you risk coming up with a lowest common denominator product and performance will take a hit," Jordan said. 

David Park, director of systems design for BelAir Networks, agreed. The startup has developed its own enhanced 802.11a chip sets and software to create access points that use three radios to provide on a point-to-point backhaul link 54 Mbits/second at ranges from one to ten miles. The systems " aimed at large service providers, apartment buildings, convention centers and airports " are now in trials with several North American users. 

Ike Nassi, founder and chief technology officer of startup Firetide, said trying to create a mesh-networking standard "is like trying to mix and match ports from Cisco and Nortel switches-it's never been done." 

Fireside will launch on January 5 its HotPoint 1000S wireless mesh router which creates an 802.11b mesh linking multiple off-the-shelf access points. The system uses proprietary software based on technology developed by SRI that makes a mesh network appear like a multiport Ethernet switch. 

The Firetide software essentially puts a wrapper around incoming packets to store information such as a client's MAC address. The code runs on an embedded X86 single-board computer. 

"It's true we don't interoperate with other mesh networks, but there's a lot of things we do that the other guys don't to make mesh networking easy to use," said Nassi. 

Sources: Different, including EE Times, Mobile Pipeline, FierceWireless and 802.11 Report Newsletter

MobileInfo Comments and Advisory: Consolidation of Wi-Fi hotspot BCCA (Billing, customer care and authentication) is absolutely necessary before we can realize the benefits of Wi-Fi.

Let us understand what China is doing with new standards - the old club of Silicon Valley business leaders better open up to China and India. We support Chinese forcing the issue by setting its own standards wherever appropriate. Why should we start complaining when one fourth of world's population starts setting slightly different standards when we do not complain if a small startup in silicon valley sets up different standards. Let us fight with innovation, superior and cheaper products. Global trade is changing the rules of the game.

Finally, let us understand security issues with Mesh networks in Wi-Fi context. If Cisco and Intel want to spear-head that, it is all right but let it be an open process. Let IEEE set up a SIG for that and best ideas and not largest companies dictate the standards. If those ideas come from Intel and Cisco, so be it. 

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