Coming soon: IBM; Mobilestar, Proxim, Siemens-Proxim
(WECA: wirelees ethernet compatibility alliance...)
1. There are news too, that Siemens with Proxim ar going to announce Home Rf - product.
2. IBM with startup Mobilestra will show Bluetooth, VPN, office product..)
By Carmen Nobel, PC Week Online
February 4, 2000 4:14 PM ET
Speedier wireless LANs are coming soon to a public space near you.
Lucent Technologies Inc. plans to debut this month 11M-bps wireless LAN access devices that include a set of products to provide wireless Internet access from airports, hotels and other well-traveled terrain, sources close to the company said.
Lucent is the latest wireless LAN hardware provider attempting to team with ISPs (Internet service providers) to offer full-fledged access to the Internet.
"Wireless LANs will help people who are going to public hot spots and allow them to actually Web surf to content media sites," said Bob Egan, an analyst with Gartner Group Inc., in Stamford, Conn.
Existing wireless Internet services for handheld devices, on the other hand, "extend the reach of the Web with a surgical cut into the Internet and provide information that's relevant -- but it's not Web surfing," Egan said.
Inside Lucent's PubLAN
Lucent's 11M-bps wireless LAN access points will focus on three venues -- the home, the enterprise and, most notably, public venues, which will bring ISPs into the mix, according to sources close to the Murray Hill, N.J., company.
This focus on public spaces is a project known as PubLAN, which Lucent has been working on for more than a year, sources said. With software that sits on a LAN card in users' notebooks as well as on public access points, the technology will let users access the Internet remotely using their home or office ISP accounts.
Lucent will demonstrate the products at the CTIA Wireless trade show in New Orleans at the end of this month. Based on the 11M-bps 802.11b standard, the new PC Cards and access points will include authentication and billing features that let ISPs recognize who is hooking up to the LAN and for how long.
Lucent officials acknowledged plans for the wireless announcement but declined to talk about pricing or whether they had forged deals with any ISPs.
Lucent isn't the first company to develop a wireless LAN for public places, but it may leapfrog its competitors by using high-speed, standards-based wireless technology.
MobileStar Network Corp.,
of Richardson, Texas, offers a wireless LAN service in several airports and hotels, which users can access via MobileStar software along with PC Cards and access points from Proxim Inc. (The access points are linked to T-1 lines.)
Proxim's wireless products are not standards-based and currently run at 2M bps. Proxim officials in Sunnyvale, Calif., say the company has its proprietary 11M-bps product ready, pending approval by the Federal Communications Commission.
But will it fly?
For some users, even a 2M-bps wireless connection beats dialing in to the Internet via a pay phone kiosk in the airport.
"If I dial up on a 56K modem at the Admiral's Club, it's going to take me forever, whereas if I dial in from a wireless LAN, it's at least 20 times as fast," said Phil Holden, senior systems analyst for mobile computing at American Airlines Inc., in Dallas.
Other observers said they believe the technology, even at 11M-bps speeds, won't be worth the investment until it's pervasive.
"To me, it will add value when they have penetration at the major airports and in all major equipment," said John Weaver, IT manager at Elektra Entertainment Group, in New York. "If the technology is built into all of the modem cards that we buy anyway, then it's worth it. If it's only in the Delta terminal at Newark, then it wouldn't be worth it."
Egan speculates that the trend to push wireless networks into the home and public service areas will increase once the technology hits speeds of 5GHz. The 802.11 road map indicates that this will happen within a couple of years. |
