CWNP Blog

CWNP
February 09, 2011

802.11n, Security, and MCS Rates

I had an interesting experience a while back. As I’ve said before, I work primarily from my home office and a local office in West Michigan. I went upstairs for one reason or another (too much coffee), and when I came back down to my office, I caught a whiff of something that surprised me. You ever have that? Perhaps you’ll smell pumpkin pie and it’ll remind you of high school homecoming or the smell of aloe (or moth balls) will remind you of Grandma’s. Well, I walked into my office, smelled this delightful smell, and at first, couldn’t identify it. It took me a few seconds, as I looked up at my open office window, to realize that this captivating aroma in which I partook was none other than fresh air. I’ve been inside too much lately.

CWNP
January 31, 2011

January Wi-Fi Notables

January was a relatively exciting month in the SMB and enterprise WLAN arena. Here are some of the hot topics that caught my attention.

CWNP
January 27, 2011

Wi-Fi Misinformation

Warning: I may sound snobbish (bordering on judgmental) in this article. I subscribe to a local technology newsletter. The members meet once a month, so I get a monthly invite to the nerdfest with a description of the topic, the schedule, the sponsor, and the presenter. Most months they talk about switching fabrics or virtualization or WAN optimization or something else that is not really in my swing zone. But, perhaps twice a year, the topic of wireless rolls around, and I attend. Last night was one of those nights.

Andrew vonNagy
January 17, 2011

Best Practices to Achieve PCI Compliance for Wireless Networks

Wi-Fi security is a big deal. The widespread adoption of Wi-Fi over the last decade combined with early security protocol design flaws, multiple high-profile security breaches, and the recent explosion of mobile commerce initiatives have placed Wi-Fi security at the forefront of industry regulations and corporate IT security budgets.

CWNP
January 12, 2011

Factors to Compare Integrated and Overlay WIPS

Last time I wrote about the WIPS evaluation factors on this blog, I focused on the WIPS features and did not discuss the topic of integrated/overlay WIPS. While that post was well received, readers also wanted to see the discussion on the integrated/overlay WIPS architectures. I hear them, since almost everyone planning the WIPS project in the enterprise network is faced with making the choice between these two architectures. So the question arises: Are there any objective criteria that can be used to make the judicious decision on the WIPS architecture that is right for the particular environment? Yes there are, and that is precisely the topic of this post. In this post, I will lay out some factors which can help compare these two WIPS architectures for your environment.

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.

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