Mark Blowers
February 28, 2006

A wireless environment can be difficult to administer with potentially many different types of users, including short-term guests, wireless capacity problems, and security threats. Enterprises also need to take into account the integration of new wireless hardware with existing WLAN infrastructure, including the additional complexity brought about by the use of Access Points (APs) from multiple vendors. To maximise the productivity benefits of a WLAN requires the ability to manage capacity and the deployment of an integrated wireless management solution.

Wireless technology brings into focus system and network security, as physical barriers no longer apply. The ease with which an employee can deploy a rogue wireless access point for personal use also adds to the potential for serious security breaches. Organisations need to be able to quickly detect and isolate rogue devices. This has resulted in wireless networks not being adopted in enterprises as quickly as anticipated. Although, there now seems to be a growing trend for organisations to move from dipping a toe in the water to wireless enabling more office space, including meeting rooms and public areas. Especially as providers of wireless solutions are now addressing the challenges found in the enterprise, as can be seen by two announcements in February, which will be of particular interest to IT managers contemplating getting serious about wireless networks.

Extricom, a designer and manufacturer of high-performance Wireless LAN (WLAN) infrastructure solutions for the enterprise, as unveiled TrueReuse which can provide a three-fold increase in channel capacity. The release, expected in the second quarter of 2006, brings together two complementary approaches: an interference-free channel blanket topology, for achieving reliable coverage and seamless mobility with simple deployment, and real-time frequency reuse inside the channel blanket, for an increase of total capacity.