Category: Wireless

Ultra-cool Computers

My next personal computer is going to be an ultra-portable tablet. I’ve never bought a laptop of my own, since my employers tend to shower me with them, and they’ve had so many drawbacks I couldn’t see any point in shelling out for one of my own. But recent research shows that we’re officially in … Continue reading “Ultra-cool Computers”

My next personal computer is going to be an ultra-portable tablet. I’ve never bought a laptop of my own, since my employers tend to shower me with them, and they’ve had so many drawbacks I couldn’t see any point in shelling out for one of my own. But recent research shows that we’re officially in the Dynabook Era with great gear like the Dell Latitude XT Tablet, the Lenovo X200 Tablet, the Asus R1E, Fujitsu LifeBook T5010, and the recently-announced HP Elitebook 2730p

What these babies have in common is light weight, sharp but small screens, long battery life, a wealth of connectivity features, and other goodies like web cams and mikes, GPS locators, touch-sensitive displays, and handwriting recognition. They’re more like Smartphones than traditional PCs, but without all the annoying limitations that make Blackberries better in the demo than in real life. Unlike pure slate computers that lack keyboards, they have swivel-mounted screens that can be twisted and folded to cover the laptop’s clamshell base, so you have a touch-sensitive display for when you need to jot notes or draw, and a regular keyboard for high-volume typing.

Each excels in some areas. The Dell seems to have the clearest screen and the best handwriting recognition since it uses a capacitive touchscreen. It draws a bit more power, since capacitive touch keeps an electric field active across the screen, where the more common resistive touch relies on a magnetic stylus to alert the touch sensor that something’s happening. The stylus-activated system rules out using your finger as a pointing device, which is also unfortunate, and has a thicker overlay on the screen than the Dell. The iPhone uses a capacitive touch system.

Dell also has a nice graphics chip with some dedicated memory which signficantly outperforms the shared-memory systems that are commonplace. But Dell’s CPU is at the low end of the scale, and the 1.2 GHz Intel U7600, an ultra-low voltage 65nm dual-core CPU, is as good as it gets. This is apparently a soldered-in part that can’t be upgraded. Dell is also super-expensive.

The Lenovo is too new for much in the way of evaluation, but it has very nice specs and a great pedigree. While the XT Tablet is Dell’s first convertible, the X200 is Lenovo’s third or so, and the details show. If they would only stop white-listing their own wireless cards in the BIOS they’d be at the top of my list. X200 Tablet uses a more substantial and higher power Intel CPU, around 1.8 GHz, which makes is considerably faster than* the Dell. They also use Intel’s Centrino graphics, and suffer a bit for it, but that’s a classic engineering tradeoff. Lenovo has an amazing array of connectivity choices, including the UWB system AKA Wireless USB. With an internal Wireless WAN card with GPS, internal Wi-Fi (including 3×3 11n,) Bluetooth, and Wireless USB, this system has five kinds of wireless without a visible antenna, awfully sharp.

The Fujitsu and Asus convertibles have larger screens – 13.3 in. vs. 12.1 for the Dell and the Lenovo – and add a pound or so of weight. Asus is concentrating on their netbooks these days, and doesn’t seem to be serious about keeping up to date, while the Fujitsu makes some strange choices with noisy fans and heat.

To be avoided are the older HP’s using the AMD chipset. AMD can’t keep up with Intel on power efficiency, so convertible systems that use their parts are only portable between one wall socket and another.

None of these little Dynabooks has made me swipe a card yet, but the collections of technology they represent say a lot about the future of networking. With all that wireless, the obligatory Gigabit Ethernet looks like an afterthought.

Which brings me to my point, gentle readers. What’s your experience with Wireless WANs in terms of service – between AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon, who’s got it going on? I get my cell phone service from friendly old T-Mobile, but they’re not player in the 3G world. I like Verizon’s tiered pricing, as I doubt I’ll use 5GB/mo of random wireless, as close as I tend to be to Wi-Fi hotspots, but it seems like a much nicer fall-back than using my Blackberry Curve as a modem.

For a nice demonstration of the XT’s capacitive touch screen in comparison to the more primitive Lenovo, see Gotta Be Mobile.

*Edited. The X200 non-tablet has a faster processor than the X200 Tablet. The tablet sucks power out of the system, and Lenovo had to de-tune the CPU to provide it.

Netgear dumps trash with Open Source

Dana Blankenhorn is excited about Netgear’s announcement that it’s fully supporting a router intended to run open source software, but he’s off on the relevance of the hardware: MyOpenRouter offers developers a comprehensive user guide, applications forums and downloads. Best of all this isn’t a stinky would-not-sell-otherwise router. It’s got an internal diversity antenna to … Continue reading “Netgear dumps trash with Open Source”

Dana Blankenhorn is excited about Netgear’s announcement that it’s fully supporting a router intended to run open source software, but he’s off on the relevance of the hardware:

MyOpenRouter offers developers a comprehensive user guide, applications forums and downloads. Best of all this isn’t a stinky would-not-sell-otherwise router. It’s got an internal diversity antenna to improve performance, and supports WPS.

Actually, that’s not at all impressive.Every Wi-Fi router built in the last three years supports diversity and WPS, but the relevant ones also support 802.11n. This is simply an obsolete b/g router that Netgear is dumping, probably to reduce inventory. Wake me up when you see an open source router supporting 802.11n, I’ll buy one in a heartbeat.

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World’s Largest 802.11n Network

Trapeze Networks finally has announced their deal with U. of Minnesota to build the world’s largest 802.11n network: PLEASANTON, Calif., March 10, 2008 – Trapeze Networks®, the award-winning provider of Smart Mobileâ„¢ wireless solutions, today announced that the University of Minnesota plans to deploy its Smart Mobileâ„¢ 802.11n wireless network product suite campus-wide, marking the … Continue reading “World’s Largest 802.11n Network”

Trapeze Networks finally has announced their deal with U. of Minnesota to build the world’s largest 802.11n network:

PLEASANTON, Calif., March 10, 2008 – Trapeze Networks®, the award-winning provider of Smart Mobile™ wireless solutions, today announced that the University of Minnesota plans to deploy its Smart Mobile™ 802.11n wireless network product suite campus-wide, marking the largest ever 802.11n deployment to date. Beginning in May and continuing over the next five years, approximately 9,500 access points (APs) will be deployed to serve more than 80,000 people across the university’s two campuses. Students, faculty and staff will have fast and secure wireless access wherever and whenever they want it.

This network features a lot of the code I wrote for Trapeze for 802.11n, 802.11e, and bandwidth management, so I hope Trapeze hasn’t screwed it up too badly in the weeks since I left that company for my current gig.

White Space Faux Pas

The great white space coalition’s submissions to the FCC are a big bust: A group of companies including Microsoft and Google had hoped to convince regulators that some new devices could carry high-speed Internet connections over television airwaves without interfering with broadcast signals. But it didn’t work as planned, according to a report released this … Continue reading “White Space Faux Pas”

The great white space coalition’s submissions to the FCC are a big bust:

A group of companies including Microsoft and Google had hoped to convince regulators that some new devices could carry high-speed Internet connections over television airwaves without interfering with broadcast signals.

But it didn’t work as planned, according to a report released this week by the Federal Communications Commission. After four months of testing, the agency concluded that the devices either interfered with TV signals or could not detect them in order to skirt them.

Why am I not surprised?

See more discussion by free marketeer Jerry Brito at TLF and by consumer warrior Harry Feld at Public Knowledge.

John Kneuer on Spectrum Policy and Network Neutrality

Doc Searls asked an interesting question to John Kneuer at SuperNova: What were the rate terms and conditions for WiFi, and what would have happened if those channels were auctioned? and then David Isenberg chimed in: Wi-Fi isn’t, wasn’t auctioned. It isn’t owned by any company any carrier, yet I think that everybody in this … Continue reading “John Kneuer on Spectrum Policy and Network Neutrality”

Doc Searls asked an interesting question to John Kneuer at SuperNova:

What were the rate terms and conditions for WiFi, and what would have happened if those channels were auctioned?

and then David Isenberg chimed in:

Wi-Fi isn’t, wasn’t auctioned. It isn’t owned by any company any carrier, yet I think that everybody in this room, most people in this room, and perhaps yourself, would agree that Wi-Fi is the most innovative section of the spectrum. So there’s no market. Why isn’t that the model instead of auctions?

This was on account of Kneuer talking up the auction of spectrum in the 700 MHz range. People in the audience cheered Doc for asking the question. What does that say about the audience?

On its face, it’s not a sensible question. The apparent belief among the SuperNova crowd is that WiFi is more or less equivalent to high-power 700 MHz, so it can be handled by the regulators the same way. What they’re missing, of course, is that unlicensed WiFi doesn’t need to be auctioned because its low power and large channel count (in the 11a range) permit multiple parties to use it without interfering with each other. And these characteristics limit propagation to 300-1000 feet for most applications.

Would anybody build a region-wide network with towers on every block? Clearly not, so WiFi is a non-starter when it comes to providing competition to wireline broadband providers. If 700 MHz were regulated like WiFi, with low power and no license to operate, it would also be a non-starter in the last mile broadband business.

Humorously, the folks who argue for unlicensed wireless also complain about the lack of competition in broadband.

If they had their way, they wouldn’t have their way.

In related news, the FTC says net neutrality is not necessary:

The Federal Trade Commission today dealt a serious blow to “Net Neutrality” proponents as it issued a report dismissive of claims that the government needs to get involved in preserving the fairness of networks in the United States.

The half-life of political Kool-Aid is apparently about twelve months.

Internet over TV, maybe

There seems to be a huge disconnect on the nature of the magic box proposed to the FCC by the Usual Suspects to reclaim whitespace abandoned by analog TV: A coalition of big technology companies wants to bring high-speed Internet access to consumers in a new way: over television airwaves. Key to the project is … Continue reading “Internet over TV, maybe”

There seems to be a huge disconnect on the nature of the magic box proposed to the FCC by the Usual Suspects to reclaim whitespace abandoned by analog TV:

A coalition of big technology companies wants to bring high-speed Internet access to consumers in a new way: over television airwaves. Key to the project is whether a device scheduled to be delivered to federal labs today lives up to its promise.

The coalition, which includes Microsoft and Google, wants regulators to allow idle TV channels, known as white space, to be used to beam the Internet into homes and offices. But the Federal Communications Commission first must be convinced that such traffic would not bleed outside its designated channels and interfere with existing broadcasts.

The six partners — Microsoft, Google, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Intel and Philips — say they can meet that challenge. Today, they plan to give FCC officials a prototype device, built by Microsoft, that will undergo months of testing.

Is it a low-power, in-home system comparable to WiFi and UWB, or is it a high-power, long-distance service comparable to WiMax? Nobody seems to know, yet that’s critical to evaluating its usefulness. Anybody who knows, please clue me in.

Aruba’s nervous breakdown

It’s come to our attention that Aruba Networks, the wireless LAN company that recently filed for an IPO, is terrified by the new architecture of the Trapeze wireless LAN system. To summarize the issues, Trapeze and Aruba both build enterprise-class wireless switches, consisting in both cases of wireless Access Points and back-end Ethernet switches. Both … Continue reading “Aruba’s nervous breakdown”

It’s come to our attention that Aruba Networks, the wireless LAN company that recently filed for an IPO, is terrified by the new architecture of the Trapeze wireless LAN system. To summarize the issues, Trapeze and Aruba both build enterprise-class wireless switches, consisting in both cases of wireless Access Points and back-end Ethernet switches. Both systems present a control point on the Ethernet side, and both switch traffic between the wire and the air.

But the new Trapeze architecture has a wrinkle that makes it much faster, more resilient, and more scalable than the Aruba system: local switching. In the Aruba system, all traffic originating on the air has to go back to a Big Ethernet switch before it can be decrypted and delivered to its final destination. But the Trapeze system, with local switching enabled, makes forwarding decisions at the edge of the wired network, not in a big switch that can become a traffic bottleneck.

Hence the Trapeze system can handle larger numbers of users with lower latency with no loss of management flexibility: you manage it as if it were a Big Fat Switch system, and it right-sizes its forwarding functions according to traffic needs, not the blinders of a mediocre group of system architects.

This has Aruba running scared, so they’re in full FUD mode as the e-mail below indicates. I’ve interspersed the Aruba message with a fisking from Trapeze.

Enjoy.

From: Alan Emory [mailto:[email protected]]
Subject: Trapeze Takes A Step Back – Selling Fat APs

We need to start with the subject of the message. Trapeze actually has taken a big step forward by combining the best of fat and thin APs in a single comprehensive solution. Aruba and Cisco force you to make a choice…one size fits all. Only Trapeze allows you to use the right tool for the right environment. It is very important to note that the customer can run the entire Trapeze system in a completely thin, centralized way if they so choose. Smart Mobile provides more flexibility in case that isn’t the right answer for your environment. Aruba? If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Continue reading “Aruba’s nervous breakdown”

Accel getting serious?

This little move probably won’t garner a lot of attention, but I think it’s interesting: Silicon Valley venture firm Accel Partners has hired mobile software expert Richard Wong as a partner, the latest sign of where investors think the action will be. Wong spent six years at OpenWave, which developed early mobile browsers (WAP), and … Continue reading “Accel getting serious?”

This little move probably won’t garner a lot of attention, but I think it’s interesting:

Silicon Valley venture firm Accel Partners has hired mobile software expert Richard Wong as a partner, the latest sign of where investors think the action will be.

Wong spent six years at OpenWave, which developed early mobile browsers (WAP), and where Wong worked with mobile companies like Sorrent, Jamdat, Infospace and Motricity in their earliest stages and saw them grow quickly. He oversaw OpenWave’s marketing efforts, and more recently was head of its product division. (Here is his bio.)

Mobile wireless is a much more interesting world than the old-time Internet, and it’s not constrained by nutty interest groups peddling loony regulatory myths. It’s smart of Accel to get serious about it.