Linksys EA6900 Smart WiFi Wireless AC Router AC1900

Similar to the EA6500 and the EA6400, the new EA6900 has a nice-looking design, taking the shape of an UFO with a glossy-finish top. However, the new router has three external detachable antennas coming up from its back -- previous models of the EA series use internal antennas. The router is designed to stay flat on a surface but it's also wall-mountable. Despite the external antennas, the EA6900 remains quite compact, measuring just 10.1 inches by 7.3 inches by 1.6 inches. In fact it's the most compact router of its type.

Granted, it's of a new type; it's the third router I've seen that's equipped with the new Broadcom TurboQAM Wi-Fi chip (the other two are the Asus and the Netgear mentioned above.) This chip supports the top tier (1.3Gbps) of 802.11ac on the 5GHz band and on the 2.4GHz band, offers up to 600Mbps (compared to the 450Mbps of existing Wi-Fi chips). This is because with TurboQAM technology each 2.4GHz spatial stream can deliver up to 200Mbps instead of 150Mbps. On top of that, the router is powered by a dual-core 800MHz processor. It's easily the most powerful router Belkin has offered thus far.

Top Wi-Fi speedCPUUSB 3.0 supportDimensionsWeightAsus RT-N68U1.3Gbps (5GHz) / 600Mbps (2.4GHz)Dual-core 800MHzYes8.7 x 6.3 x 3.3 inches1.4 poundsLinksys EA69001.3Gbps (5GHz) / 600Mbps (2.4GHz)Dual-Core 800MHzYes10.1 x 7.3 x 1.6 inches1.2 poundsNetgear R70001.3Gbps (5GHz) / 600Mbps (2.4GHz)Dual-Core 1000MHzYes11.2 x 7.3 x 2.0 inches1.65 pounds

On the front the EA6900 has just one white LED status light in the shape of Linksys' logo. On the back it has four Gigabit LAN ports, one Gigabit WAN port, one USB 2.0 port, and one USB 3.0. You can use these ports to host either printers or external storage devices. Oddly, the router allows users to turn off its network ports' light via its Web interface, but not the status light on the front.

Also on the back, there's a little button for the Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) feature and a recessed reset button. The former initiates a 2-minute window in which WPS-enabled clients can automatically connect to the router's Wi-Fi networks, and the latter brings the router back to its default manufacturer settings.

Belkin's Linksys EA6900 Smart Wi-Fi has all there is to be a great router in theory but it fails to deliver in practice.

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CASE STUDY : Aerohive Enables The Boyd Group to Offer Complete Wireless Solution Across North American Operations

Aerohive AP350 access points are deployed in each retail location across the US and Canada, with over 660 APs currently implemented in the collision shops. Each collision facility has approximately three APs, with particular care to ensure for no blackout spots due to the magnitude of heavy metal machinery located in each shop.

When the Boyd Group began to evaluate its network needs, it considered various vendors including Meraki, Meru and Aruba. The company then turned to Gartner for a technology analysis. Gartner positioned Aerohive as a Visionary in the 2012 Magic Quadrant for the Wired and Wireless LAN Access Infrastructure report, in part for Aerohive’s innovative enterprise features and its differentiated approach to the market. Based on this insight, as well as a recommendation from a local school district in Manitoba running Aerohive successfully, the Boyd Group chose to implement Aerohive for its entire wireless architecture across all operations.

Although all operations were not yet wireless, the Boyd Group replaced what Cisco equipment it did have with Aerohive solutions. Without a need for controllers, it was much simpler for the company to roll out a wireless network across its entire operations, even deploying in less than four months from the start of the initial evaluation.

The wireless network connects back through an MPLS network to its main data center located in Youngstown, Ohio, that houses and manages firewall and content filtering, as well as managing its corporate intranet traffic. Aerohive APs are also deployed at its headquarters location in Canada, providing Wi-Fi for executives, the accounting team, and employees that operate mobile devices. Eventually the company wants to acquire additional mobile device management solutions in order to open up the network at headquarters to all employees.

HiveManager Online is used for all network management and control, giving flexibility to the IT teams based both in the US and Canada. As Michael Wenham, IT Administrator with the Boyd Group explains, “The HiveManager Online dashboard interface is very easy to use and customize, and we have especially benefitted from having a complete picture of our network at all times. Aerohive enables us to see which clients are connected across our network, what bandwidth concerns we might have, and troubleshoot any issues from an interference standpoint.”

The Boyd Group has set up a guest network at each retail location. The company is utilizing guest-specific SSIDs and the captive web portal to manage guest access, allowing the company greater control and security through Aerohive’s identity-based policy features.

After analyzing customer trends, the company determined the typical wait time is less than one hour, so the guest network connection is set to expire after one hour, which also ensures greater security for the company. The network access also terminates when shops are closed, and HIveManger Online makes it easy for the company to set a schedule for various time zones and locations.

The Boyd Group is also evaluating Aerohive BR100 and BR200 branch routers for use exclusively at new facilities. With its strong acquisition strategy and the increasing number of new repair centers opening each year, the company has a need for using Aerohive routers to quickly allow facilities to connect right away to the corporate network, especially when it can take a long time to install the necessary infrastructure at new retail locations.

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More SEPTA stations getting Comcast WiFi

SEPTA and Comcast Corp. will light up about 70 train stations, including the 69th Street, Olney, and Frankford transit hubs, with free WiFi.

The five-year project - to be announced Tuesday at a news conference at the 69th Street terminal - will enable WiFi for hundreds of thousands of SEPTA commuters and expand Comcast's rapidly growing low-cost wireless network.

Under the program, free WiFi will not be available on the trains themselves.

Comcast - the Internet, cable TV, and entertainment giant - now has 300,000 public WiFi hot spots in Philadelphia and 11 other markets, and intends to boost that number to millions.

The free WiFi will allow SEPTA commuters to access e-mail or the Web while they wait for trains, trolleys, and buses, and broadly expand a project that began with the Market East, Suburban, and 30th Street stations in 2010.

Comcast agreed to provide free WiFi as part of a $1.7 million advertising campaign in SEPTA stations, the transit agency's spokeswoman, Jerri Williams, said Monday. SEPTA will benefit with $1 million, she said, and $700,000 will go to the advertising firm that negotiated the deal, Titan Outdoor L.L.C.

When SEPTA commuters access the free WiFi, they will be greeted by an Xfinity screen. There also will be Comcast/Xfinity signage.

Comcast "wanted to bring WiFi to our riders, but we said it had to be free," Williams said. "What is so special is that [it] will be available at 69th Street and the transit hubs."

Some trolley stops also will have free WiFi, as will stations along the Market-Frankford El and Broad Street Subway. There are 200,000 riders a day on the Market-Frankford Line, 125,000 on the Broad Street Line.

The busiest transit hub is Frankford, followed by Olney and 69th Street. SEPTA says it hopes to have the WiFi access available in the stations over the next two years.

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Five Best Travel Routers

If you're hitting the road and taking your gadgets with you, a good travel router will help you share the Wi-Fi in your hotel, office, or anywhere else with all of them. The best ones do it with no hassle, easy setup, and small form-factors that slip nicely in a carry-on bag. Some even keep your gadgets charged while they're connected. This week, we're looking at five of the best travel routers, based on your nominations.

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Case Study : Aerohive Brings Flawless Outdoor Wi-Fi to Harvard Square (Google partnership)

The Solutions

That is when the HSBA turned to Brendan Burroughs at One World WiFi, a local wireless network integrator with deep knowledge of municipal deployments, who had recently completed an outdoor deployment at neighboring Central Square using Aerohive solutions. Brendan conducted an analysis of the current network and mapped out a new design, taking into account many variables of the outdoor space, such as the height of buildings and layout of the streets, problematic foliage in the park, as well as the need to deploy a solution able to withstand the harsh New England winters. Harvard Square covers 44 acres, one million square feet of space and is home to 360 business locations so the network needed to be designed for today and any expansion in the future.

As Denise Jillson of the HSBA states, “Aerohive proved to deliver the best connectivity and performance among all the providers we considered. Ensuring a robust network was of utmost importance, and coupled with its good price point, no single points of failure and stellar customer service, Aerohive was clearly the best solution for Harvard Square.”

Harvard Square chose Aerohive’s AP170 and AP350 access points (APs) for durability and reliability. The AP170 is an enterprisegrade, high performance MIMO solution, specially designed for outdoor high-bandwidth–demand wireless deployments, and able to handle not only a influx of users, but the harsh climate as well. The AP350 provides the best range among Aerohive APs and is designed for high bandwidth demand. The band steering features built into the firmware are very important to Harvard Square and municipal networks in particular, urging users to move to 5GHz channels whenever possible, ensuring optimal network performance and efficiency.

In addition to the APs, One World WiFi uses Aerohive’s HiveManager Online, part of its cloud services platform, to administer and monitor the network. HiveManager offers realtime topology, performance and client information to simplify troubleshooting, capacity planning and security remediation of networks. Because it is not essential to the flow of traffic, losing connectivity to HiveManager will not affect any control or data forwarding features of the Harvard Square network.

As Brendan Burroughs explains, “Aerohive’s HiveManager Online solution means I don’t need additional employees to monitor a network, and with cloud-managed solutions, I’m able to grow my business because I can administer networks remotely, prioritizing changes based on feedback from HiveManager Online, and making tweaks seamlessly and without complexity from anywhere in the world.”

The Results

As part of the Wi-Fi upgrade in the Square, the HSBA partnered with Google to help sponsor the rollout of the new solution. Users are directed to Google products and services such as Google+ and Play Store. Before the official rollout, members of the team tested the network, sat in the square, set up a Skype account and video conference, walking around the Square as they chatted.

Since the rollout, the HSBA has seen an increase in the number of unique visitors on the network, but most importantly witnessed flawless network performance and connectivity.

“Go to Harvard Square and you’ll see why we chose Aerohive. If you go to another municipal Wi-Fi deployment with different solutions you’ll see the difference – there’s no comparison for the end user. Aerohive just works better,” confirmed Brendan Burroughs, CEO of One World WiFi. “With minimal configuration and headache, along with excellent customer service, Aerohive is my top choice for municipal deployments.”

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CASE STUDY : Nicolet National Bank Deploys Aerohive for Mobile Banking Solution

The company uses Aerohive AP110 access points, ideal for small retail environments where a single radio solution is sufficient. Nicolet Bank also deployed Aerohive AP330 access points in its headquarters location and where an enterprise-grade, high performance access point is needed for high capacity. The company uses HiveManager Online for cloud network management to set simple policy creation, firmware upgrades and centralized network management.

Enterprise-class features were a strong selling point for Nicolet Bank, including the monitoring and filtering features that allow the company to enforce rules on certain applications before they affect critical parts of the network, like Pandora, as well as allocate additional bandwidth to applications that specifically facilitate collaboration and communication among employees. Radio profiles are configured and modified to adjust power and facilitate fast roaming among APs.

Application Visibility and Control features from Aerohive are second to none and provided crucial functionality for Nicolet Bank, especially as the number of devices continues to grow and as the company is now offering a BYOD environment for guests and employees on the same infrastructure. This set of features enables the IT team to scale to support demand, and allows control for which applications are permitted, prioritized, or de-prioritized for access to different applications by specific users based on identity, device type, location, and time.

As Jon Biskner, Vice President of Information Technology at Nicolet National Bank explains, “A driving factor in our decision to choose Aerohive was their deep understanding of enterprise network traffic, providing greater awareness and control for Nicolet Bank. If Aerohive were compared to a highway, we not only knew how many cars were on the road, but we also knew the model, make and color. Aerohive enabled Nicolet Bank to truly achieve a secure network for our mobile banking environment.”

Nicolet Bank now offers a BYOD services for employees at all 24 branch locations, with one secure network for corporate issued devices and another for BYOD, by using Aerohive’s client management tools in conjunction with Aerohive’s advanced flow-based firewall capabilities. This is essential for network management as the lines between corporate-issued and end user-owned devices often blur. The Aerohive solution allows for clear differentiation between corporate issued, BYOD, and other guest devices, streamlined and automated connectivity, management and monitoring, all on the same infrastructure. This is facilitated by HiveManager Online’s ability to automatically create and install a unique client certificate and install a secure profile on each device using a single SSID.

Nicolet Bank is also using the integrated RADIUS server capability built directly into the Aerohive HiveOS operating system, available on all Aerohive access points. This was key for Nicolet Bank as it formulated its disaster recovery plan, consulting with Aerohive engineers on specific guidelines. The RADIUS server support allows for continuous network access even if the WAN connection is down, crucial for mobile banking business continuity.

On the firewall side, Nicolet Bank uses Palo Alto Networks, a network security company that works closely with Aerohive. The combination of security features from Aerohive and Palo Alto Networks, along with HiveManager Online platform management, has allowed Nicolet Bank to have complete awareness and control, easily monitoring and shaping both wired and wireless network traffic.

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Israel : ELTA partners APTILO to offer Wi-Fi offloading

ELTA Technology, a telecommunications systems integrator has joined forces with Aptilo Networks, the leading provider of mobile data offloading solutions, to enable Wi-Fi offloading to two of Taiwan s tier 1 service providers Chunghwa Telecom and FarEasTone.They are making use of the Aptilo Service Management Platform (SMP) with Aptilo Wi-Fi Offloading solution and SIM Authentication Server. The award-winning platform of Aptilo manages and provides mobile data services for wireless networks. Aptilo SIM Authentication Server securely and automatically links subscribers to the Wi-Fi network, for a seamless login and excellent Wi-Fi offloading experience.

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Getting Started in Wireless: 7 Tips for your Wireless Career

In this post, I want to share seven simple tips to help you and your wireless career: "Understand What a Career Is"A career is the ongoing development of skills, attitudes and relationships that lead you into and through various professional positions and objectives

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Stunning umbrella exhibit launches Canary Wharf Wi-fi

A canopy of umbrellas arrived at Reuters Plaza on Monday morning to publicise Canary Wharf's new Wi-fi.

O2 is operating the technology which offers web connection in all public areas, including parks, malls and streets.

The 'UK's biggest umbrella' measuring six by eight metres took three weeks to create and is made up of over 500 individual umbrellas.

It will remain near the Tube entrance for two weeks and is expected to cover 1.2 million people during this period.

Eric van der Kleij, specialist technology advisor to Canary Wharf Group, said: "Wi-fi is a vital utility for businesses and the public. We are delighted to partner with O2 to bring free wifi access to the entire Canary Wharf community.

Canary Wharf is an original smart city.

"Our built environment is one of the most technological advanced in the capital, so it was important for us to have a wifi provider that is experienced in delivering high quality services to ensure effortless access for those based in or visiting Canary Wharf."

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Cisco: Global Cloud Traffic Growing at 35% CAGR

Global data center traffic will triple from 2.6 zettabytes in 2012 to 7.7 zettabytes annually in 2017, representing a 25 percent CAGR, according to a newly published Cisco Global Cloud Index, but the transition to cloud services is driving global cloud traffic at a growth rate greater than global data center traffic. Global data center traffic will grow threefold (a 25 percent CAGR) from 2012 to 2017, while global cloud traffic will grow 4.5-fold (a 35 percent CAGR) over the same period. Cisco estimates that cloud traffic globally will grow from grow from 46 percent of total data center traffic (98 exabytes per month or 1.2 zettabytes annually) of total data center traffic in 2012 to 69 percent of total data center traffic (443 exabytes per month or 5.3 zettabytes annually) of total data center traffic by 2017.

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Researchers in China use light bulbs as a speedy alternative to Wi-Fi

Scientists at Shanghai's Institute of Technical Physics have developed a light bulb that produces its own Wi-Fi signal. Aptly named Li-Fi, the connection it produces is said to actually work better than the average wireless connection in China. Talk about a bright idea!A one-watt LED bulb permits up to four nearby computers to connect to the Internet using light frequencies instead of radio waves. On the technical side, we are told the bulb is embedded with a chip that produces a signal capable of wireless speeds up to 150 Mbps which is much faster than most networks in the country.If the idea of the technology alone wasn’t cool enough, another benefit is the fact that it’s affordable. All you need is a light bulb and the Li-Fi kit.Of course, it’s still in an early testing phase as there are a number of hurdles that still need to be overcome. For example, it doesn’t work when the bulb is off (kind of a given, no?) nor does it work if the bulb is blocked. What’s more, a good bit of work still needs to be done in terms of light communication controls and the microchip design / manufacturing.

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VIDEO : How Aerohive customers are using the cloud?

Many Aerohive customers are leveraging Aerohive's cloud networking services to centrally manage their locations from anywhere and accelerate their deployment time. In this video, you'll hear how Burgerville, Northwest Community Credit Union, and Dari Mart benefit from Aerohive's cloud networking solutions.

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Meru Launches the Market's Fastest 802.11ac Access Point to the Middle East

Meru Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ: MERU) today launched the Meru AP832, the market's fastest 802.11ac access point, to the Middle East. The AP832 delivers as much as 3X the performance of 802.11n access points.

Meru's 802.11ac speed is attributable to the Virtual Cell, a single-channel option provided by the MobileFLEX architecture and its support for the use of 80 MHz channels as outlined in the IEEE 802.11ac draft specification. Competitors' wireless architectures largely restrict support for 40 MHz channels due to limited channel availability, reducing data rates to approximately half of the 1.3 Gbps-per-radio the specification allows. Meru customers also report that 802.11n devices run up to 30 percent faster on the AP832 than on 802.11n access points.

The Meru 802.11ac solution is extremely power-efficient, enabling the use of three spatial streams over two 802.11ac radios on standard 802.3af power. This eliminates the need for customers to upgrade their entire Ethernet switching infrastructure, as currently required by many Meru competitors when deploying their 802.11ac solutions.

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Slow, clunky Wi-Fi connections trip up UO students

The university devoted $660,000 to tackle the first of these issues — maintaining connections — by the end of this year.

The student population has soared by 40 percent, to 24,500, since 2000, when only 60 people had signed on to the campus Wi-Fi system. The system has failed to keep up.

On the third day of classes, for example, freshman Caitlin Dieni had needed to print her assignments but couldn't get to them because the wireless system wouldn't connect.

Dieni picked up her smartphone and tweeted her exasperation: "ALL I WANT TO DO IS CONNECT TO THE FREAKING INTERNET. OMG. I FREAKING HATE UO WIRELESS. #havehomework #needinternet"

"Watching TV and movies on a WiFi device, that is at most five years old. Those take a lot of bandwidth," said Professor Andrzej Proskurowski of the UO computer science department.

It's a "device explosion," according to EDUCAUSE, the Colorado-based association representing higher education chief information officers. Bandwidth congestion is the No. 1 problem that IT officials face on campuses across the country, according to the organization's annual survey.

"Take your lawn irrigation system in the neighborhood," Proskurowski said. "It's warm, and everybody is watering their lawns and the pressure drops.

"That's what you experience on the first day of school when everybody wants to register, check this and check that, send an email to Mama — 'I arrived and I'm fine' — and there is limited capacity of the pipe of the Wi-Fi," he said.

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Nikon D5300 DSLR unveiled with Wi-Fi and 24.2MP sensor

Featuring built-in Wi-Fi, the Nikon D5300 can transmit images and videos to any iOS and Android smartphone or tablet to upload to Facebook or your chosen social network. The Wi-Fi also enables the smartphone or tablet to act as a remote for the camera.

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Hotspotio wants to make public Wi-Fi a more social experience

The service supports Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, and keeps track of the various "favors" granted and owed in a user profile.Hotspotio uses a GPS-enabled map to help Wi-Fi seekers discover nearby networks being shared through the service. Users can share any network they're connected to, as long as they know the SSID and password.

Within reason, that is founder Simon Schultz tells Network World that Hotspotio doesn't link sharers to their sharees (except via social media), so it can't be used to get around, for example, the captive portal security used in most for-pay Wi-Fi systems."We only want people to share networks that they are allowed to share," he says.

Hotspotio, Schultz says, is essentially a sophisticated replacement for manually sharing Wi-Fi passwords, using encrypted communications to ensure security.

"See it as a substitute to exchanging post-it notes with handwritten passwords," he says.

An iOS version is on the way, according to Schultz, who hopes that this expansion will help broaden Hotspotio's reach. The iPhone and iPad version of the app should arrive near the beginning of 2014.

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The Dual-Band WiFi Venti WLAN Embedded Antenna

The Venti WLAN embedded antenna works with all bands - 2.4/4.9/5.2/5-5.8 GHz (802.11 a/b/g/n/ac). Venti stamped metal antennas take on the questions facing today’s product designers. Venti’s high performance provides greater connectivity. Venti stamped metal antennas have a variety of device application: Access Points, Gateways, Routers & Industrial Handhelds & WiFi enabled Televisions & Monitors. Venti antennas stand firm against detuning; delivering a strong radio link regardless of the usage position. Venti WLAN antennas are patent pending in a stamped metal embodiment to provide high performance. Venti antennas require a smaller design keep-out area and are available in both SMT and Coax Feed versions.

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57 Cities Now Have Free #Wi-Fi, But They're Not Thinking Big Enough

In August, Los Angeles, began research on a program that would make it the largest city in the country to blanket the city in free Wi-Fi. Currently, over 57 U.S. cities are providing “muni Wi-Fi” on some level. These cities hope “muni-Wi-Fi” will provide job opportunities to their underserved populations, facilitate waves of innovation, and brand the city as tech-friendly.But a single-minded focus on municipal Wi-Fi is misplaced. To maximize investments in digital infrastructure, local governments should look beyond cosmetic solutions such as municipal Wi-Fi, install a fiber-optic network, and implement a public-private model to finance the construction.The actual benefits of municipal Wi-Fi are limited. First, a large majority of Americans already have access to the internet, creating a dynamic in which municipal Wi-Fi will only marginally expand the use of the internet. Right now, 85% of Americans over the age of 18 have access to the internet and 70% of adults have high-speed internet in their homes. Of the portion of the population that does not have internet in their home, nearly half claim that they simply don’t want or need it. Thus, for the vast majority of the population, municipal Wi-Fi plans will only provide a supplement to household connections, possibly explaining why established municipal Wi-Fi programs have generally targeted 10-25% of the population, but have only achieved a 1-2% signup rate.Furthermore, Wi-Fi services offered by municipalities tend to be inferior to what’s already on the market. The average broadband download speed in the United States is 8.6 Mbps (megabits per second) and the average smartphone download speed can range from 1-5 Mbps for 3G services and 5-17 Mbps for LTE services. In contrast, although exceptions exist (see San Jose, Calif.), municipal internet speeds are typically only 1 Mbps. For example, city-provided Wi-Fi in Raleigh, N.C., Santa Clara, Calif., Albany, N.Y., and El Paso, Texas all provide speeds around 1 Mbps. By comparison, your local Starbucks used to offer speeds of 1.5 Mbps, before it partnered with Google last month to provide speeds of up to 15 Mbps.

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AirTight and Purple WiFi Partner on Cool Mashup for Guest Access Marketing Automation

AirTight® Networks, a global provider of cloud Wi-Fi solutions, today announced its OEM agreement with Purple WiFi, a developer of guest WiFi solutions. Under the agreement, AirTight has integrated Purple WiFi's guest access and hotspot social engagement software into its cloud-managed Wi Fi platform and applications suite.The joint AirTight/Purple WiFi solution takes the state of the art far beyond mere social-identity-based check-in, by: tapping individual user profiles from social networks to aid programmatic marketing engagement based on guest characteristics and visit patterns, simplifying the social marketer's life (at both store and brand levels) through a powerful but very accessible template-based interface for creation and management of customized, behavior-based marketing programs, reaching users through their preference of e-mail, SMS, or social channels (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and/or Instagram), as well as… providing data feeds back into core CRM systems as desired for further omnichannel engagement.

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VIDEO by I ♥ WiFi : Demonstration of the #802.11ac capture

ay Botelho Director of Product Management spoke next, and gave us the WildPackets technical history.

• First to support data capture and analysis of 802.11ac traffic


• The most comprehensive voice over wifi analysis


• Only application to support remote data capture from commercial enterprise access points


• Best application for distributed networks with remote 24x7 real-time analysis

Since the last time WildPackets presented at WFD4, they've since brought to market full 802.11ac support and data captures from locally-attached or remote access points.





The demonstration of the 802.11ac capture was interesting in that copies of OmniPeek and 802.11ac adapters were gifted to the delegates in order for them to generate 802.11ac traffic in the presentation room. OmniPeek only has drivers for the Ralink chipset wireless adapters at this time, but they should have a two stream adapter supported by the end of this year.

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Moxa's 802.11n Wireless Dual Radio AP Deployed in Germany's 200 High-Speed Trains

As part of a major refurbishment of over 200 high-speed trains in Germany, a leading telecommunications system integrator partnered with Moxa, a leading provider of industrial networking and computing solutions, to deploy customized AWK-5232-M12-RCC wireless dual radio APs with 802.11n Auto Carriage Connections technology.



This refurbishment added onboard passenger Wi-Fi through wireless hotspots that gives passengers onboard access to travel updates from the ground, email, and web video.



In order to provide wireless hotspots on train carriages, the onboard system must have a modern communication backbone. However, in a refurbishment project such as this one, there are rarely any spare wires available to establish Ethernet data links between train cars. This makes a wireless backbone the obvious solution that minimizes deployment cost and effort for train refurbishments.



However, during actual operations, it can be tedious to constantly configure wireless links between different carriages. A configuration-free setup in which wireless access points seamlessly connect carriages with secure point-to-point wireless links and avoids manual configuration errors would be a far more efficient solution.



To meet onboard space limitations, Moxa offered a customized flexible wireless solution which presented all the physical inputs on the front panel. For this project, two customized AWK-5232-M12-RCC dual-RF 802.11a/b/g/n wireless devices are mounted next to each other and linked via Ethernet. Two RF cards on this system establish the secure 5GHz point-to-point inter-carriage wireless link. The other two RF cards serve as 2.4GHz access points for passenger Wi-Fi. In addition, to increase the installation and maintenance efficiency of the inter-carriage wireless link, Moxa's proprietary Auto Carriage Connection (ACC) technology is used. ACC allows each unit to come with a single default configuration which does not ever need to be changed during operations.

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Apple seems to also believe in Multipath TCP

Multipath TCP is a TCP extension that allows a TCP connection to send/receive packets over different interfaces. Multipath TCP has various use cases, including : enable smartphones to use their WiFi and 3G interfaces simultaneously or in failover modes improve TCP performance in datacenters to exploiting multiple paths improve performance on dual stack hosts running IPv4 and IPv6 ...Designing such a major TCP extension has been a difficult problem and took a lot of effort within several research projects. The work started within the FP7 Trilogy project funded by the European Commission. It continues within the CHANGE and Trilogy 2 projects.After five years of effort, we are getting close to a wide adoption of Multipath TCP. In January 2013, the IETF published the Multipath specification as an Experimental standard in RFC 6824 In July 2013, the MPTCP working group reported three independent implementations of Multipath TCP, including our implementation in the Linux kernel. To my knowledge, this is the first time that a large TCP extension is implemented so quickly. On September 18th, 2013, Apple releases iOS7 which includes the first large scale commercial deployment of Multipath TCP. Given the marketing buzz around new iOS7 releases, when can expect tens of millions of users who will use a Multipath TCP enabled device.

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WHITE PAPER : Integration of Cellular and Wi-Fi Networks

4G Americas, a wireless industry trade association representing the 3GPP family of technologies, including LTE, today announced that it has published a white paper, Integration of Cellular and Wi-Fi Networks, which explores the current state of Wi-Fi/Cellular integration and makes specific recommendations to enhance key components: Wi-Fi network selection and traffic steering, referred to as Intelligent Network Selection (INS). The paper reviews and describes fundamental aspects to Wi-Fi such as: · Seamless service / session continuity, QoS, security, Hotspot 2.0 and concepts of Intelligent Network Selection (INS) · Access Network Discovery and Selection Function (ANDSF), its technical background and existing challenges for ANDSF-based INS · Device aspects of network selection and traffic steering, current standards and solutions and gaps in existing standards work The white paper reviews the standardization work in 3GPP for a network-based mobility mechanism (SaMOG). This technology option supports tight integration of Trusted Wi-Fi networks with 3GPP Cellular networks and is identified as the best path forward. Subscribers can move between LTE and Trusted Wi-Fi networks while preserving their IP address and allowing access to Operator Services over Wi-Fi (e.g., IP Multimedia Subsystem or IMS). The paper also explores how to enable real-time services and end-to-end Quality of Service over an integrated Trusted Wi-Fi network. The paper recommends the use of the WPA2 airlink encryption and SIM-based credentials for authentication purposes by dual mode devices that support both Wi-Fi and Cellular accesses.

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PRESS RELAEASE : Xirrus Announces Industry-First Dual-802.11ac Radio Access Point

News and media coverage for XirrusXirrus, the leader in high-performance wireless networks, today announced the XR-630 802.11ac access point (AP) featuring ACExpress™ – a Xirrus innovation that intelligently separates high-speed from lower-speed mobile devices to maximize system performance. The XR-630 provides a cloud-managed, low-cost expansion of the Xirrus 802.11ac portfolio that also includes Xirrus' line of modular, upgradeable line of XR Arrays. The XR-630 is the first access point of its kind to feature two radios capable of supporting the new 802.11ac standard, allowing organizations to provide performance well beyond that of 802.11n and enabling mobile users to experience application performance comparable to that of a wired network.

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Wi-FI TOOL : How Many Wi-Fi SSIDs Are Too Many?

One of the most commonly cited best practices among Wi-Fi professionals is to the limit the number of SSIDs you have configured on your WLAN in order to reduce the amount of overhead on the network and to maintain high performance. But there is not a lot of public data out there to really drive home this point when explaining it to another engineer, management, or a customer. Simply telling someone that they shouldn't create more than 'X' number of SSIDs isn't very convincing.



Therefore, "Revolution Wi-Fi" has created a visual tool to help you explain WHY too many SSIDs is a bad thing

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Press Release : Xirrus Announces Industry-First Dual-802.11ac Radio Access Point

News and media coverage for XirrusXirrus, the leader in high-performance wireless networks, today announced the XR-630 802.11ac access point (AP) featuring ACExpress™ – a Xirrus innovation that intelligently separates high-speed from lower-speed mobile devices to maximize system performance. The XR-630 provides a cloud-managed, low-cost expansion of the Xirrus 802.11ac portfolio that also includes Xirrus' line of modular, upgradeable line of XR Arrays. The XR-630 is the first access point of its kind to feature two radios capable of supporting the new 802.11ac standard, allowing organizations to provide performance well beyond that of 802.11n and enabling mobile users to experience application performance comparable to that of a wired network.

See it on Scoop.it, via WiFiNovation

via WiFiNovation | Scoop.it