Wireless stars at smaller Interop show

The NetWorld+Interop show in Atlanta last week was a shadow of its former self, a victim of the economy and show dates that spanned Sept. 11. Attendance was light, and the vendor exhibits filled only three-quarters of one hall, where in years past two were used.

Predictably, one of the hot show topics was wireless. I caught up with Proxim for the first time since it became the Big Kahuna of wireless by acquiring Orinoco from Agere Systems in June and asked about the acceptance of 802.11a.

Ken Haase, director of product marketing and business development in Proxim's Broadband Services Division, says sales of the 54M bit/sec wireless Ethernet gear are growing at roughly the rate of the 11M bit/sec 802.11b equipment. In response, the company has come out with dual-slot access points to give users an upgrade path.

Which raises the question of 802.11g, the forthcoming standard that supports 54M bit/sec but operates in the 2.4-GHz range of 11b. Haase says Proxim will support 11g if market demand dictates, but he questions whether that will happen. For one, the 2.4-GHz range is the same that cell phones, PDAs, microwave ovens and other equipment use, which could make 11a the better choice for higher-speed office networks.

And two, silicon is now available so vendors can start making combo 11a/11b NICs (they will arrive soon, Haase says). So if users can tune into 11a and 11b office networks and public hot spots, why do we need 11g?

On the wireless security side I talked to a company called Fortress Technologies, which sells Layer 2 encryption gear for wireless Ethernets. Layer 2 security, Fortress argues, is the only way to go.

While you can leave wireless LANs outside of the firewall and use VPN technology to regulate network access, this Layer 3 approach leaves management control packets and other network layer data in the clear. Armed with that, a hacker could cause major disruptions, Fortress says. That's why the IEEE is focused on Layer 2 security standards.

Fortress sells equipment that supports encrypted throughput at 11M and 65M bit/sec. The 11M bit/sec 1100 box is said to actually increase 11b throughput from 3M to 4M bit/sec to 5M to 6M bit/sec because of the use of compression.

Fortress was one of the companies that seemed to be doing good business on the show floor, even though show attendance was down. Only time will tell if Fortress and others will have an N+I to return to in Atlanta next fall. The odds don't look good.

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