CWNP Wireless Certification & Wireless Training

Your Account |

Search:

Free Stuff

Much Ado About Where

Add to:

Written by Devin Akin

Monday, 10 November 2008

First, there was a defensive strategy: Meru's RF Barrier. Very nice. Then, Agito added locationing to their systems whereby each phone can "calibrate" areas in such a way that they're drawing a physical line of where/when to move to/from cell tower to/from Wi-Fi network. No scanning-for-WiFi all the time (saving battery life) because when you get to a certain cell tower, you know you're "at home" or "at work" and start looking for Wi-Fi. Seriously cool. Now, I'm hearing talk of adding "where" to system authentication. No longer will it be enough to have your username/password (and/or other credentials)...now you have to physically be in the right location also. WAY Cool! Why so much focus on "where?"

Real-Time Locationing (tracking stuff and people), context-aware applications, the list is endless. If "they" know where you are, they can focus on gathering and reporting "more relevant" information. Suppose you travel from your company's HQ office to a branch office. When you connect to the Wi-Fi network and access internal servers, information specific to that location can be delivered to you rather than you having to sort through vast amounts of irrelevant data. The same context-aware mechanisms apply to retail - think about connecting to the Internet over Wi-Fi in an Apple store. Location-specific content can be delivered to your iPhone when connected to their Wi-Fi network (like store specials or something similar). Sweet.

I'm always hearing about how VoWiFi is the killer app. Maybe for today, but MARK MY WORDS, RTLS is the end-game. It will wear many faces (authentication, intrusion protection, people/goods tracking, context-aware apps, etc.), but it will become the most pervasive technology the world has ever seen. The Wi-Fi infrastructure providers need to focus much time/effort on this topic over the next 5 years if they want to keep up. Yeah, yeah, I know you're thinking, "this guy sure makes some radical predictions" and "what if he's wrong?" I'm not. :)

Comments (4) Add Comment

Subscribe to this comment's feed

...
written by GTHill, November 08, 2008

Devin,

Don't hold back. Be more confident in your predictions. :)

GT

...
written by Slipshod, November 08, 2008

Devin,

Between this post and the last, you're on a roll... The question is "Who do you think is strategically placed to take advantage of both?"

...
written by GTHill, November 08, 2008

Strategically placed? Meru has the nice infrastructure for voice, but it only sells AP's and no end user products.

Aruba has a nice product, but again doesn't sell an end user product like a VoIP phone.

There are only two vendors that will offer both VoIP phones and RTLS. Cisco and Motorola. Both companies have strong product lines and are financially stable so you won't regret the decision three years from now.

Discussing vendors will quite often start a "Ford vs. Chevy" style debate. I see the pros and cons of many vendors, but right now I'm on the Moto bandwagon. They are the best poised company to take advantage of FMC, plus they are really pushing the wireless to the edge architecture which, in a down economy especially, will be attractive to companies when they can spend a significant amount less money on network deployment.

GT

...
written by Devin Akin, November 08, 2008

I'm Switzerland. No comment. ;)

Write comment