End of June Wi-Fi Notables

End of June Wi-Fi Notables

By CWNP On 06/30/2010 - 17 Comments

The Wi-Fi market is healthy and growing. To keep you apprised of the comings and goings you may have missed, here are five notable Wi-Fi happenings from the month of June. You might call this a newsletter blog.

Wall jack APs are hot—Both Motorola and Ruckus Wireless released new APs this past month in a wall-plate form factor. HP and Aruba offer 802.11g models of the same, but Ruckus and Motorola upped the ante with 802.11n. Motorola (AP 6511) went heavier on performance with dual-band 2x2 MIMO, while Ruckus (ZoneFlex 7025) kept it simple with 2.4 GHz 1x1. Ruckus included a handful of Ethernet ports (one of which supplies up to Class 2 PoE output), while Motorola kept the stock model lean with a single port (there’s a snap-on 3-port Ethernet module if you need more ports).

Ruckus released an Ethernet switch—In an interview with Ruckus, they said they’re going to overtake Cisco in the wired switching market within 5 years (I’m totally kidding). In reality, Ruckus did come out with a 24-port (with four fiber uplink ports with SFP transceivers) Gigabit PoE access switch. Ruckus isn’t making a play for the wired network; I can only assume that this is a way to provide “one-stop” shopping to help their SMB customers upgrade their switching infrastructure to accommodate 802.11n. Smart.

Scalable VoIP Mobility book—I received a copy of Joe Epstein’s new Scalable VoIP Mobility book the other day. As I write this, I’m somewhere in the middle of chapter 2, looking at the guts of signaling and bearer channels; after reading only a small number of pages, I already give the book a wholehearted two thumbs up. Joe is one of the smartest Wi-Fi guys I know, and his writing style is super easy to follow. If you’ve been looking for a thorough and detailed guide to VoWiFi, this is it. Amazon's link is here.

Webtorials 802.11n Challenge—Webtorials sends me an email every week or so telling me about their latest test, report, or panel discussion. Every now and again I’ll poke my head in to see what’s going on. The Webtorials group, along with Joanie Wexler, is currently hosting a multi-vendor discussion/debate about 802.11n and Wi-Fi reliability/performance. There’s a whitepaper with 6 different vendor contributors, a moderated audio podcast, and forum-like discussion as well. Interesting discussion so far, and more will come. Check it out at: http://www.webtorials.com/content/2010/06/2010-80211n.html. You’ll need to register for a free Webtorials account.

New Aruba AP—Sometimes you hear in the automobile industry about a manufacturer that has a “full line” of products (you know, economy, mid-sized, and full-sized sedans, a crossover, two or more SUVs, a truck product or two, minivan, etc.). Well, I think you could say that when it comes to Wi-Fi, Aruba has the “fullest line” of products, and they’ve just added another AP to complete the portfolio. They have dual-band 3x3 (AP-124/125), single-band 3x3 (AP-120/121), dual-band 2x2 (AP-105), APs integrated in the controller (600 series), RAP-2 and RAP-5 remote user/branch APs, legacy products (AP-70, AP-65, AP-60/61), and now they’ve also introduced single-band 2x2 (AP-92/93) options. For the product types with a slash (e.g. 124/125), we’re talking internal v. external antenna options. If you’re buying Aruba, there’s an AP for you.

There’s plenty more going on, but these updates caught my attention. Anything noteworthy catch your attention this month?

Tagged with: ruckus, aruba, Wi-Fi news, motorola, joe epstein, Webtorials

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