Number 247 - December 2003

Some Wi-Fi Features
By Leo Salazar, LACS, Notes from Wi-Fi SIG meetings
On August 14 and September 11, the third and fourth meetings of the (LACS) Wi-Fi SIG were held at the training room of the CompUSA Culver City store on Jefferson Boulevard. The planned demonstration of a local wireless network was sidetracked in August by the Blaster worm's causing a store request to not fire up our own equipment, but in September we did use our access point and laptops to create a small room network successfully.    This was followed by discussion of laptop firewall protection as a further safety step when using public hotspot networks around the city. 'The September meeting ended with a visit to the Wi-Fi Alliance website for a quick look at the history of 802.11 evolution, tips on ensuring hardware compatibility, and reviewing the available glossary of Wi-Fi terms and the many useful links. 'The demonstration of an ad hoc network of laptops alone will be continued in October. Public Hotspots    First Visits. 'The most publicized local chain of hotspots may be the ones at Borders bookshops and Starbucks, both using the same T-mobile WLAN platform. In both places, you simply sit at a small table, fire up your laptop to let your wi-fi card sniff the ambient wireless LAN , and follow the onscreen guides until the T-Mobile welcome page opens and you are asked to log on.    It's at this log-on screen that T-mobile's economic model becomes clear with an immediate offer to open a user account. Creating a user name and password completes the process, and then you're free to surf till you drop. Testing the access speed to news and blog sites from the Encino Borders showed no obvious difference in surfing wireless or wired. The Fees    T-mobile has several payment plans: A yearly low-cost contract, a higher monthly rate with freedom to cancel any time, or even a per minute plan to test the waters more cautiously, but which requires a single hour's charge for each log-on. An even better deal is the Daypass promotional program described in a brochure that permits twenty-four free hours usable on any schedule over the following sixty days, though again requiring a full hour's credit depletion at every log-on.    There are also sites with no log-on charges at all, ranging from individual restaurants to entire streets like the hotspot zone recently opened in Long Beach. However, for reliable Wi-fi access pretty much anywhere in town, your chances so far are still better with the fee-based service offered by the Starbucks-style heavy promoters. Enhancements and Compatibility    A concern of many early adopters is that later enhancements of the 802.11 technology may not be backward compatible with prior equipment. It's true that the 11g standard approved just this June is compatible with existing 11a and 11b platforms. And the expected replacement of the original WEP security platform with the new WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) security enhancements should also permit software and firmware upgrades on existing equipment.	The WPA may be released separately in advance enabling 2-way authentication for the first time between mobile stations and access points. The full 802.11i platform that WPA was designed for is also expected to include the powerful Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) recently adopted by the U. S. government, and this addition means that the 802.11i platform will probably require its own math coprocessor, making it incompatible with existing hardware.    So it appears that both IT administrators and private users will face hard choices between accepting the lesser security available with older equipment or opting for additional hardware investment in order to enjoy the new 802.11i security levels. Rollercoaster    This rapid morphing affects our own Wi-Fi SIG discussions, where each meeting brings new surprises. Recently the Society has seen many articles about cellular broadband as yet another alternate to Wi-Fi, with email, graphics and web surfing, accompanied by claims of instant obsolescence for all rival technologies.    The less strident truth is that no one yet knows which convergence of technologies will take over. Right now cellular broadband has major speed issues with its throughput, and most heavy hitters are gathered around the 802.11 platform. But cellular's broad band roaming ability and millions of current subscribers worldwide provide an existing infrastructure that keeps the game wide open.    The rollercoaster pace itself of wireless computing suggests an appearance so long overdue that the birth is now taking place through a multiplicity of channels. The famous 18 month turnover rate in most computer evolution is viewed with some nostalgia in this field, where eighteen days now seems more appropriate between events. Change?    This is a young field still flexing its muscles in all directions, but even here mastering the fundamentals does help us grasp the difference between endless minor variations on the one hand and the fewer but more significant tectonic shifts on the other.    Minor variations might include the varied billing and access protocols of competing providers, or differences between .11b and .11g throughput speeds, while much more fundamental would be the structural delivery differences between cellular broadband and 802.11 hotspot technologies themselves. Last Man    The last man standing has yet to be determined, and a convergence of each platform's virtues may still emerge. But despite the clutter of minor cross-currents, it's worth remembering that there are still just a few basic streams so far I and keeping track of them is one reason the Wi-Fi SIG is here. All members are invited to participate.
Number 247 - December 2003