iDEN one foot in the Grave?

Sprint announced that it will launch CDMA handsets with Nextel Direct Connect early next year. This is not a hybrid CDMA / iDEN technology, but rather a compatible Push To Talk technology using the CDMA network which Sprint successfully tested late last month. Sprint said these handsets will come in a variety of styles, from ruggedized to sleek, and a variety of manufacturers. Sprint will continue branding their walkie talkie service Nextel Direct Connect as these new CDMA handsets will be able to work with iDEN handsets as well as each other. Sprint will also add new features to Direct Connect with these phones, including a single number for voice and PTT as well as PTT voicemail.

Still Not Sure About Voice Over WiFi

My biggest concern are the security issues which may be over hyped but do have merit remain the biggest obstacle's of true wide spread use and deployment of voice over wireless LAN solutions. Many of the respondents in the Kubernan/Webtorials 2007 Wireless LAN State-of-the-Market Study, sponsored by Nortel have basically said the same thing. The perceived “insecurity” about wireless security has been a consistent primary research finding each of the four years that the study has been conducted. Nearly 52% of 300 respondents, who are subscribers to the Webtorials networking education Web site and who play a role in their companies’ WLAN implementation, cited security as one of the two biggest challenges of building large-scale Wi-Fi deployments. From a data connectivity perspective you can live with eb and flow network connectivity, but with Voice you must have a consistent solid connection with no hick ups. QOS issues and hard to nail down across WiFi networks. RF is a crazy thing and does some weird things at times.

Another big challenge is the reliability and stability of Wi-Fi’s unlicensed spectrum which according to the respondent in the study garnered half as much attention @ (24%). The issue seems to remain primarily one of education and training: Most users believe the technology and capabilities exist to keep their networks secure, but implementing wireless security is so complex and multidimensional, they don’t feel confident that they won’t leave a protective stone or two unturned.

That being said, enterprises are doing some things right: Nearly 38% have deployed Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 (WPA2), which embodies the most current and most robust IEEE standard for Wi-Fi security, 802.11i. Thirty-six percent continue to use VPN technology over their Wi-Fi connections for protection and the same percentage has also implemented wireless virtual LANs (VLAN) to segregate user groups and applications. About 13% have deployed wireless intrusion detection/prevention (WIDP) overlay systems from a third party, while another 20% have deployed the WIDP capabilities embedded directly in their Wi-Fi system by their primary vendor.

Other items and issues worth mentioning from the report:
* Enterprise plans for adopting VoIP over Wi-Fi are all over the map.* Enterprises are planning to wait for final standards ratification before deploying 802.11n networks.* The degree of enterprise Wi-Fi backbone coverage seems out of sync with the percentage of employees that seem to have access.

http://www.webtorials.com/

Muni WiFi to the Rescue - Minneapolis Bridge disaster

Over the last few days I have read several reports and bogs from others online who have pointed out the Muni WiFi network was available during the time when none of the wireless carriers networks were usable. Like other large events cell phone networks get jammed with all circuits are busy and maxed out capacity.

Minneapolis' wireless network provided by USI Wireless opened the city’s WiFi network for free for 24 hours to anyone who could use it. Network traffic jumped from 1,000 users to 6,000. People with WiFi-enabled phones could make voice calls, and anyone with a WiFi enabled laptop PC or other device could send instant messages, video, photos or e-mail. USI Wireless had to add extra access points to accommodate the increased demand.
However a Muni WiFi network can be swamp and jammed just like a cell network can. However the Muni WiFi network in the case was very important in the rescue efforts following the bridge collapse.

SF Muni Wireless: Almost Dead?

Read Comments from Richard Martin who works for Information Week

Richard from Info Week points out the how San Fran's local leaders for years have made dumb decisions to build costly money sucking projects over the years. There have been a lot of supporters and non-supporters of larger Muni WiFi projects like the one in San Fran. I personally think Muni WiFi can be possible only if the local utility companies gas, water, power all come together and collective and mutually work with the local public safety agencies. Using these local utilities and public safety groups as the anchor tenants gives the city a chance of having a viable business model.

It now appears that EarthLink wants to back out of the San Fran Muni project unless something major changes. Like many other larger Muni Wirless projects the ROI and profit margin for the San Fran network are just hard to justify, thus the stance thatEarthLink is force to take. EarthLink is a profit making enterprise looking to stay in business. The margins are so tight and the upfront cost of deployment and the ongoing costs just make it a very difficult business model to make a profit.

At one time I thought the only one who could make Muni Wifi work was Google with the ability to sink billions of dollars in the "Build it they will come type of network". Having a anchor tenants along with some local location based and national advertising could help subsidize the cost and may help get close to a profitable position. It has become obvious that the WiFi for free model will not work for any provider looking to make any profit.

In some of my earlier posts two years ago when I worked for the Mesh Networking Group at Motorola I make several comments on how from a Public Safety prospective it some make sense to have a secure private wireless broadband infrastructure for first responder. Some smaller cities have deployed networks that accommodate the Public Safety Agencies with the ability to provide a separate segmented part of the network for the general public to use. We can't have this discussion with bringing up WiMAX. WiMAX has had a lot of hypoe but iis getting close to being a real options in the Muni Wireless space. But the cost of building out a WiMAX network is very large, so we shall see. The upcoming 700 MHz auctions may change the whole landscape as well.

Testing from Blackberry

This is my first blog message from my 8800 Blackberry.
Sent via BlackBerry using the New at&t wireless network