Eric Griffith

Anyone with a Blackberry is probably well aware of how patents can impact the lives of… anyone.  For a corporation, a patent awarded by the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) can mean a lot of things toward its intellectual property (IP) rights: the ability to demand licenses, horse-trading with other vendors, having a leg […]

The fastest way to make sure your wireless LAN (WLAN) is protected is to let the network protect itself. That’s why companies like Extreme Networks and Xirrus are partnering with providers of intrusion detection and prevention systems to embed security functions rather than force customers to install an overlay sensor network. Xirrus, makers of the […]

Looks like calling a product “Pre-N” (as in 802.11n) this year won’t be seen as a bad thing. As was expected, at the IEEE 802.11 Working Group meeting in Kona, Hawaii, the 802.11n Task Group (TGn) approved the Enhanced Wireless Consortium (EWC) proposal for the future high-speed wireless standard. The EWC was formed last year […]

The stories of infighting in IEEE (define) Task Groups are becoming legendary. The most familiar of late is in the 802.11 Working Group’s Task Group N (TGn). Members, entrusted with creating a specification that will move 802.11-based wireless networking up to speeds of 100 Megabits per second (Mbps) or faster, split into two camps — […]

Reuters and other sources yesterday pointed to pages found on Google.com indicating plans afoot for the search engine giant to offer a Wi-Fi VPN software tool called ”Google Secure Access”. As of this writing, the tool is found at the URL: WiFi.Google.com/download.html. A FAQ file at the site describes the Windows-only software as ”a downloadable […]

For a week, it seemed no one could communicate out of the city of New Orleans. This week, on the communications front at least, things are looking up. Verizon Wireless, for example, said this weekend it had completely restored service in Baton Rouge, La.; Pensacola, Fla.; and Jackson, Miss. Things are improving in Mobile, Ala. […]

With broadband use now overtaking the number of dial-up Internet connections in the United States — Nielsen/NetRatings said as of July that 63 million people at home use broadband, making up 51% of the market — it would seem that the time for a Wi-Fi router that specifically targets dial-up use would have passed. Rudy […]

A year and a half after first announcing a planned collaboration, Motorola , Avaya , and Proxim today unveiled the platform they’ll offer to enterprise customers to solve mobile voice issues both inside and outside the office. The Converged Mobility Solution, as the companies call it, consists of WLAN infrastructure equipment from Avaya and Proxim […]

News on these products has leaked out for weeks, thanks to gadget blogs and other sites that watch for FCC approvals, and retailer site foul-ups that spill the beans. However, today they are official: Hewlett-Packard (HP) is launching a new line of iPAQ-branded personal digital assistants (PDAs) that will use several forms of wireless for […]

This week in Portland, Oregon is the IEEE 802 Plenary Session, which includes a meeting of the 802.11 Working Group (WG) to define all the various Wi-Fi standards. Among the many Task Groups within 802.11 that will be meeting at the show, there’s perhaps no standard more eagerly anticipated than 802.11n. Task Group N (TGn), […]