Your Guide To Wireless

Paris to Offer Free Wi-Fi Across City

DIYers IT Zone reported that Paris is planning to offer wireless Internet that would blanket the city by the end of 2007, according to a plan laid out by city mayor, Bertrand Delanoe. Additionally, Delanoe is hoping to having 80 percent of the city covered by a fiber network by the end of 2010. Tax breaks would be given to all companies that installed these fiber-optic cables throughout the city. Although access to the network would be free, it is said that it will maintained by private networks. Also, access points would be installed at many public places, such as libraries. The final plans for the network are planned to be presented next week. Many companies are starting to experiment with wireless Internet access in popular cities. Google, for example, now provides free access in Mountain View, California by installing routers on telephone poles. However, Google wasn’t the only Internet search service that was launching a Wi-Fi service - Yahoo was rumored to launch one in April (Although the rumored service has yet to launch). Many other cities, such as Philadelphia and New York City, now have networks that are slowly gaining support from users. [tags]Paris, Wireless Network, Metro Wi-Fi, Internet[/tags]

Pre-802.11n Future Uncertain ?

Even as Linksys, Netgear, and Belkin sell routers and wireless network cards based on a mere draft of the eventual 802.11n Wi-Fi specs, that standard remains uncertain. The IEEE committee assigned to ratify such things failed to move the current 802.11n spec forward for final approval. All of those pre-802.11n routers already in the field may have been launched prematurely, critics warn. As no one knows for sure what shape the final 802.11n spec will take, it’s increasingly unclear whether a firmware upgrade will make the pre-802.11n routers truly 802.11n compatible, let alone interoperable. [tags]Pre-80211n[/tags]

Linksys Network Optimize for Home Network

The mushrooming home network market is now sprouting its own class of peripherals. The Linksys Network Optimizer claims to cure the hiccups and bandwidth-sharing problems that plague online gaming and VoIP connections. The OGV200 is about the size of a deck of cards and sits between the broadband modem and your router. There’s no manual setup, says Linksys. The device automatically distinguishes time-sensitive data streams such as digital phone calls and online game action and gives them top priority in the stream. [tags]Linksys, network optimizer[/tags]

Protecting Your Computer from Intruders

Wireless networks are growing in popularity because of the ease of installation and the terrific benefits that they offer. Nothing beats the ability to take your laptop and not have to worry about plugging into the network to do your work. The added freedom of a wireless network is very pleasing. Nevertheless, many people do not realize how insecure most wireless networks actually are.To fully understand this, you must realize how exactly a wireless network works. Basically, wireless connections are made up of a base station and a client adapter. The wireless base station broadcasts all of the data to the clients in a circle around the base station, as do the client’s adapters. This creates a large area over which information is broadcast. If you care about the security of your computer and personal information such as credit card numbers, you must configure your wireless base station to encrypt the data that it sends. Otherwise, just about anyone can connect to your wireless network and gain access behind your firewall to all of your unprotected computers. Additionally, users can sniff the wireless traffic and see exactly what you are sending back and forth. It really is amazing how many people leave encryption turned off on their wireless base stations. I was always surprised when I took the train into Chicago and worked on my laptop on board. Every now and then, I would notice my laptop connecting to various wireless access points for a few seconds as the train was moving past them. Securing your wireless base station/access point is very important. [tags]Wireless Security[/tags]

Broadband At 100mph

Omniwav Mobile just released the WAAV CM3 Cellular Router. Designed as a router for your car, the WAAV connects to 3G cellular networks and makes the bandwidth available for up to 50 people via Ethernet or Wi-Fi. When stationary, the unit can distribute broadband up to 300 feet, but Omniwav Mobile also says it works in a car traveling at up to 100mph. We thought talking on the cell phone while driving was unsafe. Via product page at Omniwav Mobile

Wireless Hotspots

As more users equip their portable computers with Wi-Fi, opportunities have emerged for anyone who can bring a DSL line and access point into a public space such as cafe, airport, shopping complex, fastfood outlet, or public library. Some people will set up an access point and charge by the hour; others will charge nothing, just to attract customers or keep them a little longer; some, such as a library, will set it up to make information more accessible. A venue with this kind of public access p...

Mobility Controller for Wireless LANs

Aruba mobility controllers are high-performance networking platforms built specifically to run centralised ArubaOS functions such as controlled access point management, 802.11x authentication and encryption, site-to-site and client VPNs using IPSec/3DES encryption, stateful policy enforcement firewalls, endpoint integrity checking, and seamless user roaming between access point and across mobility controllers. All Aruba mobility controllers share a common hardware architecture which includes ...