Hi Lee, The WiFi Alliance has never, ever, really cared about "end user" input from Enterprises. Years ago, when I was leading a very large WLAN deployment, I was able to attend as many IEEE sessions as I wanted. I attended mostly to see what was coming (to plan accordingly) and to provide enterprise feedback. Quite the humbling experience to sit in a ballroom full of the brightness engineering minds in networking.
But I only ever managed to attend a WiFi Alliance conference once and that was because I was invited to speak as a keynote speaker discussing our large deployment (which was leading edge at the time). I then used the opportunity to sit in (quietly) in the various sessions to see what how the Alliance did its work. I was very interesting and showed me that the IEEE conference were really engineering-based while the WiFi Alliance discussions were much more market driven (ie, they are vendors, they want to sell stuff and not get returns). The root problem with the WiFi Alliance is that it's only made up of manufacturers who have to pony up a large sum of money to be part of the Alliance. So they don't hear from enterprise users directly - they only hear it second hand from the vendor's marketing teams representing enterprise customers. And as we know, some vendors don't care much about enterprises so enterprises are left without a voice in these areas. I think the WiFi Alliance will continue to get it wrong because they lack the right level of "enterprise scale" input. So the challenges of integrating these "consumer" based products into the enterprise will continue to be a challenge. What the Alliance needs is an "enterprise" certification and input from that market segment and EDUs should be represented. We are not. Having said that, I like the article and I hope it's a step in the right direction! ... Jonn Martell On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 11:47 AM, Lee H Badman <[email protected]> wrote: > I know self-promotion is in poor taste, but wanted to share this > > > > http://www.networkcomputing.com/wireless-infrastructure/the-case-for-wlan-interoperability/a/d-id/1318718? > > > > and encourage anyone of like (or opposing) mind to add comments. I'm > told that the Alliance is at least reading along, FWIW. > > > -Lee > > > *Lee H. Badman* > Network Architect/Wireless TME > ITS, Syracuse University > 315.443.3003 > ********** Participation and subscription information for this > EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at > http://www.educause.edu/groups/. > > -- -- ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
