CWNP Blog

CWNP
January 05, 2011

AirCheck: A Follow Up

Back in the early Spring when the Michigan snow clung to the ground like a two-year old to mommy’s leg, I wrote about Fluke Networks’ new handheld network analysis tool, AirCheck. My original test product for that article was an early alpha unit that was returned to Fluke Networks after a hardware bug (it was fixed) was discovered. Ever since, I’ve had a slight nagging feeling that I left the intro blog a little short and lacking in visual material. I find it apt timing that a similar product was released back in December, which could make for some interesting discussion in the comments section. Anyway, to make good after my initial limitations, here’s a follow-up that demonstrates the device, its features, and its interface.

CWNP
December 15, 2010

How to Find a Wi-Fi Product's Chipset

Here's a short video demonstrating how to find the WLAN chipset for your Wi-Fi products. There are some good product chipset lists out there, but instead of giving a fish, here's a video that teaches how to fish. Go discover your own chipsets.

CWNP
December 07, 2010

Ekahau Mobile Survey

I bought an iPhone 4 and I generally like it, but Apple’s restrictive Wi-Fi API (and their app approval policies) chaps my hide. I’m sure it chaps the hide of all Apple iOS device users that read the CWNP blog. If I dwell on that topic, it irritates me. But, that’s their prerogative, and that’s also the beauty of a free market. As Apple’s main competition in handset software, Android has a much more open approach to the 802.11 API, and for that reason, there are already a load of basic Wi-Fi apps out there like WiFi Analyzer and WiFiFoFum. While helpful, these apps are all fairly basic and consumer oriented. Enter Ekahau Mobile Survey.

CWNP
November 16, 2010

Wi-Fi Frequencies: An Overview

All of the current and future Wi-Fi frequencies and technologies are getting confusing. There are actually more than you might think. Let’s take a high-level look at what’s out there and what’s coming up.

CWNP
November 03, 2010

AirMagnet Multi-adapter Support

To all of you AirMagnet fans out there, AirMagnet released a press release yesterday to announce a handful of nice (could I use a more generic word?) updates to their WLAN analysis and survey products. I had the privilege of beta testing the core update, multi-adapter support. For anyone that spends time designing/surveying for new networks or troubleshooting existing networks, this feature is a must have because it provides network analysis insight that you can’t get from a single adapter and it makes the surveying process more efficient.

CWNP
November 01, 2010

WPA with TKIP: No Fast Secure Roaming

In my previous post , I explained a few details about 802.11 preauthentication. There was a great comment after that blog asking/stating how preauthentication works with WPA. It went like this: “Wouldn’t pre-authentication only be valid for an 802.11i (WPA2) RSN network since the 802.11-2007 standard specifically states the pre-authentication capability is advertised in the RSN IE? This would mean that Wi-Fi Alliance pre-standard WPA would not be able to use this feature since it uses the WPA IE, not the RSN IE.” -- Andrew

CWNP
October 22, 2010

Preauthentication and the Common Misunderstanding

Preauthentication is a seemingly duplicitous SOB of a protocol. Since I’ve had this same conversation at least 3 times in the last few weeks, it seemed a good time to extract the truth. You ready? Get your SCUBA (did you know that SCUBA is an acronym?) gear cause we’re going deep.

CWNP
October 18, 2010

Biker shorts, M&Ms, and BigDogs

I spent the end of last week (6th-8th, that is) at Ruckus’ BigDogs partner and customer conference in Atlanta, and I have two words to describe it: fun and irreverent. In fact, I met David Callisch (VP, Marketing) at the reception on Wednesday night and that was the word he used to describe the event: irreverent. I’ll keep this blog short, but I do want to mention a few things about the conference and the company that hosted it.

CWNP
October 14, 2010

802.11 Alphabet Soup

Have you ever tried to recite all 802.11 amendments from 802.11-1997 to today's working drafts? Ever wonder what happened to the lost letters of the 802.11 spec like 802.11o? Let’s review, shall we?

CWNP
September 27, 2010

“Will Controllers Go Away?” and Other Industry Questions

I’d like to pose a question and then some more questions. Many of you started reading the CWNP blog back when the Devinator started writing it a few years back. He and I are still good friends, and I often look back on his decision to jump into the vendor-specific game from a critical vendor-neutral perspective. By “critical” I don’t mean that I am criticizing him for making that decision, but rather I’m talking about using critical reasoning to deconstruct the merits of his choice to go to Aerohive (making the assumption that he could have jockeyed for a position at any vendor for any predominant reason). Like many of you, I have a vested interest in the momentum of the Wi-Fi industry as a whole, the changes in technology, vendor positioning and market share, and the like. Thus, since I know he’s ok with it, I’d like to hear your opinions about his decision to put his flag in the sand with a controller-less architecture.

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