WifiNigel

Yesterday was the official launch of Aruba's journey in to the world of 802.11ac with their online (and real-world) Tech Field Day event where they presented their products and strategy for  11ac . I was a virtual participant, watching from over here in the UK. I have to say up-front that I do not currently supply or support Aruba products, but was very interested to hear more about their views on 802.11ac, together with their product offering. There was a lot of ground covered, but here a few (brief) notes of things that I found of particular interest for the sessions I managed to view. 802.11ac There was a very informative and lengthy discussion around 802.11ac technology, together with the lessons learned by Aruba in their testing to date. I won't cover all points here, but the headlines that stuck in my mind were: Smartphones/tablets will continue to be primarily single stream, capable of 80MHz bonded channel support Although 11ac brings significant speed a

This is just a quick note about some interesting things I found out about the  Aerohive BR200-WP  today when I was having a look at our demo kit for a possible customer solution.  The  BR200-WP  is a great little branch router/switch/AP platform. It boasts a single AP radio (5GHz or 2.4GHz, 3x3:3!!!) and has 5 x 1Gbps switched Ethernet ports (one is the WAN uplink). If you throw-in in the fact that its cloud managed and has all of the usual powerful HiveOS features (VPN, firewall, AVC, airtime fairness...etc,. etc.), you've got a great branch-router platform. (Oh yes, I forgot to mention that it has 2 x POE ports too!) But in addition to the mass of great features outlined above, the BR200-WP has one more trick up its sleeve: 3G/4G backup. The unit has a USB 2.0 port which can be used to attach a 3G/4G dongle to provide WAN backup in the event that the main WAN link should fail. This was the area I was interested in taking a look at in my testing. You'll have t

Here are the top 10 things (IMO) you don't want to hear from a customer when you arrive on site to install a new WiFi network (I compiled this rather quickly in a flippant moment - please don't take it too seriously...): Our networking guy, who was going to be helping you today, isn't available, I'm afraid he's... (choose from the following): On a late shift Off sick On leave Over-slept Double-booked Left the company Had a baby Buying a radiation suit Oh, you wanted POE ports for those APs? Our goods-in department has definitely received the kit, they're just not sure which part of the hospital it went to... Oh, we thought you were bringing the kit with you. No, we haven't received anything. You know that 500-person call-center where you said we might have issue with personal hot-spots? The good news is, we've introduced a policy of 'no personal hot-spots' in that area! As a sweetener, we gave all of the operatives a bluetooth

Last year, I put up a  posting  which highlighted the fact that here in the UK (and I suspect all of Europe) we often have 3 channels missing from our allocation of unlicensed channels in the 5GHz band.  Looking at many manufacturer data sheets, channels 120, 124 and 128 are often shown as not being supported. This is despite the fact that they are allocated for use by local regulatory bodies (OFCOM here in the UK). I recently posted a question about this on a partner forum of a major WiFi vendor that I deal with and finally got a definitive answer on this. In this post, I'll share my findings. The reason that these particular channels (120 - 128) receive special treatment is that they occupy frequencies that are used by weather radar systems. WiFi systems have to be very careful not to interfere with those systems during their normal operation. Therefore, WiFi equipment has some additional checks and tests imposed on it to make sure that it does not inadvertently cause any int

With all of the excitement around 802.11ac that is currently unfolding, I was very interested to hear about the support for 11ac by the recently released  Saumsung Galaxy S4. Having a quick scan of the reviews across the web about the new handset, I was intrigued to see claims that it supports 802.11ac, allowing speeds up to 1.3Gbps! Feeling a little sceptical that it would support anything close to those speeds, I did a bit of digging to see what I could find. My first port of call was a product tear-down over at  TechInsights.com . They revealed that the WiFi chip in the S4 is the  Broadcom  BCM4335 A quick look around the Broadcom site soon revealed the product page for the BCM4335, with an overview of the chipset specification. In summary, it supports: Single stream IEEE 802.11ac solution with  data rates up to 433.3 Mbps Full IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n legacy compatibility with enhanced performance Supports 20, 40, and 80 MHz channels with optional SGI (256 QAM modulation

 In a  recent post , I was voicing my concerns around the existing default security method employed by cloud-wireless solutions to 'protect' administrative access to their service. In summary, I proposed that some type of multi-factor authentication should be the default method of access for administrators (both customer and vendor) of cloud wireless services. The current default of a "username and password" is too weak when considering the damage that can be inflicted on an organization by unauthorized access to any cloud-managed network. I heard from one of the  guys at Meraki , letting me know that they already have multi-factor authentication.  I already knew that they have an SMS OTP method, but I didn't really think that it was a particularly good solution. For instance, what about if you're out of cell-phone range or suffer one of those annoying delays in receipt of an SMS message? However, after taking another look, they also now show support f

I've been thinking about writing this article for a while and today I came across some articles and Tweets which finally spurred me in to action (see references at the end of this article). In this article I discuss the CWNP program, with particular emphasis on the CWTS certification, for those wishing to learn about WiFi networking. I meet a lot of people in my line of work (IT professionals in the main) who would like to improve  their   knowledge  of WiFi networking, or would perhaps even like to shift their area of expertise to become focused in this area. However, the question often arises: "how do I get  into  WiFi networking".  If you're an IT professional who already has one or two areas of expertise (maybe you're already a security, routing or perhaps voice specialist?) perhaps you would like to understand WiFi networking, as it will doubtless touch your core area of focus during your day-to-day networking life. Or, perhaps you'd just like to