Article Round-Up: 02/11/2011

Here are a collection of Wi-Fi related articles that I have found useful, interesting, or enlightening. As always, for a complete list of articles check out my shared article feed from Google Reader.


My Stuff

• I'm excited about the first-ever Wireless Tech Field Day!
• I broke down Wireless Segmentation Options and how Cisco equipment performs Dynamic VLAN Assignment.
• I shared the State of Voice over Wi-Fi for enterprises, cellular providers, and consumers. There will be a lot of development in this space in 2011 (see my previous 802.11u post, and the Nokia announcement).
• I provided references for Well-Known Cisco WLAN Intervals and Cisco Unified Wireless Network Ports. Handy for network admins and CCIE Wireless candidates alike!

General Wi-Fi Articles

• Both Atheros and Marvell announced Wi-Fi chipsets aimed at providing 2-stream 802.11n MIMO capability for mobile platforms such as smartphnes and tablets.
  
• Nokia announced Smart WLAN software for seamless roaming between cellular and Wi-Fi networks. I'll be interested to see what overlap this has with 802.11.u, schedule to be ratified very soon (my guess is this is proprietary software by Nokia).
  And Ericsson has similar plans...
• In this Wireless Week article Wi-Fi: The Other Small Cell, BelAir described why Wi-Fi in the mobile carriers' network is about an alternate channel for their own content as much as data offload, and that LTE capacity will only be adequate in the short-term term. The article also touches on seamless roaming between cellular and Wi-Fi, a growing hot-topic!
• Why Wi-Fi beats Femtocells, hands down!
• The Wi-Fi Alliance urged consumers to take advantage of WPA2 security in this CNET Podcast.
• A billion Wi-Fi devices are expected by 2015, with Gigabit speeds from 802.11ac! 
• GigaOm details Qualcomm's Flashlinq, a peer to peer distributed communication technology mainly for carriers, and mis-reports on Wi-Fi Direct capability at the same time (it can share Internet / Infrastructure connections).

Retail Wi-Fi / Mobility Articles

• JCPenney is integrating iPads in-store for increased customer influence.
• Nordstrom sees their business evolving from customer-focused to customer-driven by excelling at e-commerce, multi-channel, and improved customer experience in-store through Wi-Fi.
• InformationWeek talked about how Location Based Services are driving customer store visits and influencing purchase decisions. LBS will evolve from GPS style navigation and check-ins to in-store product search and promotions over RFID and Wi-Fi. Be prepared.
• While we're on LBS, check out NearBuy's Micro-Location Solution.

Comic for the Week!





Cheers (and happy reading)!
Andrew