NETWORK WORLD NEWSLETTER: STEVE TAYLOR AND JOANIE WEXLER ON WIDE AREA NETWORKING 10/12/04 Today's focus: Which wireless in the WAN?
Dear [EMAIL PROTECTED], In this issue: * Tempers flare at wireless summit * Links related to Wide Area Networking * Featured reader resource _______________________________________________________________ This newsletter is sponsored by Packeteer Fast WAN. Fast Apps. Fast Business. Manage Your WAN for Business Success! High performing businesses rely on 2 things: Fast network performance & fast application performance. Fortunately, Packeteer gives you both. At this � day seminar, hear META analyst Jerry Murphy, BMC Software, and Packeteer, share practical strategies on how to dynamically make your WAN - more adaptive to the needs of your business. http://www.fattail.com/redir/redirect.asp?CID=84865 _______________________________________________________________ SECURITY CONCERNS STOPPING YOUR WLAN PLANS? Is it possible to deploy a secure wireless LAN with technology available today? That question preys on the minds of IT executives who are tempted to deploy enterprise WLANs, but are hesitant because of security concerns. Find out what we uncovered when we assembled 23 wireless products trying to get to the answer. Click here: http://www.fattail.com/redir/redirect.asp?CID=84764 _______________________________________________________________ Today's focus: Which wireless in the WAN? By Steve Taylor and Joanie Wexler Tempers flew at a recent meeting of the Israeli Wireless Special Interest Group (SIG), a Silicon Valley organization that convened to discuss the business potential of WiMAX (802.16-based technology) in the metro- and wide-area network. Joanie had the honor of moderating the crowd (or attempting to!), which kicked off with a presentation by Amir Rosenzweig, president of Alvarion, a large maker of broadband wireless access equipment. Rosenzweig covered the merits of 802.16-2004 technology, which was approved in June for fixed non-line-of-site broadband applications in licensed and unlicensed frequency bands below 11 GHz. 802.16-2004-compliant equipment is due to begin shipping late this year. Applications include last-mile broadband voice and data services and backhaul transport, particularly where DSL, cable and T-1 services are not abundant. WiMAX also holds potential for use in public safety networks. A mobile WiMAX version, 802.16e, is expected to be approved in the second half of next year. WiMAX can support about 75M bit/sec shared bandwidth over several miles. "It will revive the CLEC industry," predicted Rosenzweig. He also asserted that "all cellular base stations [about a million of them] will have WiMAX support" and that Intel, a big WiMAX backer, will see that WiMAX chips are pervasive in laptops in 2007. (Intel folks in the room didn't contradict him.) He said he expects to see fixed last-mile access services available in late 2005 with sustained 3M bit/sec speeds for $39 a month. The brouhaha began when the second presenter of the evening, wireless consultant Lloyd Nirenberg, who is also co-founder of IP Valuation, threw a little cold water on the rosy WiMAX projections. Nirenberg pointed out that already-commercialized technologies such as 3G and Wi-Fi (802.11) might at least eat into the WiMAX opportunity. Wi-Fi and WiMAX, for example, have roughly equal capacity per node, and Wi-Fi is already installed, is scaling rapidly and prices are plummeting. Because WiMAX is not deployed yet, "it is unlikely WiMAX can meet Wi-Fi prices in five years," Nirenberg asserted. And the technology is simple enough for users to deploy themselves; in effect, building out network infrastructures themselves, particularly in rural areas, to fill coverage gaps as needed, he said. Note, too, that dual-mode Wi-Fi/cellular phones are already in production by Motorola and Nokia, helping enable the cellular carriers to plug the coverage holes in their 2.5/3G networks with Wi-Fi networks. Needless to say, Nirenberg took it on the chin from the uninhibited and opinionated SIG attendees, who had basically come to experience a WiMAX love-fest. His point, though, was not that WiMAX would be unsuccessful - only that, as we have learned repeatedly, it often pays to temper our expectations with a dose of reality. RELATED EDITORIAL LINKS Is WiMAX a campus contender? Network World Wide Area Networking Newsletter, 06/24/04 http://www.nwfusion.com/newsletters/frame/2004/0621wan2.html What's the word on WiMAX? Network World Wireless in the Enterprise Newsletter, 09/29/04 http://www.nwfusion.com/nlwan690 VPN service exploits multiple MPLS nets Network World, 10/11/04 http://www.nwfusion.com/news/2004/101104virtela.html _______________________________________________________________ To contact: Steve Taylor and Joanie Wexler Steve Taylor is President of Distributed Networking Associates and Publisher/Editor-in-Chief of Webtorials.Com. For more detailed information on most of the topics discussed in this newsletter, connect to Webtorials.Com <http://www.webtorials.com/>, the first Web site dedicated exclusively to market studies and technology tutorials in the Broadband Packet areas of Frame Relay, ATM, and IP. He can be reached at <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Joanie Wexler is an independent networking technology writer/editor in California's Silicon Valley who has spent most of her career analyzing trends and news in the computer networking industry. She welcomes your comments on the articles published in this newsletter, as well as your ideas for future article topics. Reach her at <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. _______________________________________________________________ This newsletter is sponsored by Veritas Meta Group Whitepaper Database Infrastructure Performance Challenges: Approaches to Better Manage Application Database and Storage Subsystem Performance Corporate relational databases now manage the majority of business-critical data within the enterprise. IT organizations face continuing challenges in managing increasingly complex, data-driven application environments. Read this white paper to discover several factors which will converge to challenge the IT organization's ability to manage its database software infrastructure. http://www.fattail.com/redir/redirect.asp?CID=84727 _______________________________________________________________ ARCHIVE LINKS Archive of the WAN newsletter: http://www.nwfusion.com/newsletters/frame/index.html _______________________________________________________________ FEATURED READER RESOURCE THE NEW DATA CENTER Today's top companies are accelerating toward Web-based computing. That means building the new data center -- where grids, virtualization, autonomic computing and other big changes shatter the traditional boundaries on applications and information, and bring the extended enterprise to life. Learn about The New Data Center on NW Fusion's Research Center at: <http://www.nwfusion.com/topics/datacenter.html> _______________________________________________________________ May We Send You a Free Print Subscription? 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