I recently attended the New England Information Security Forum, one of a series of events sponsored by IANS (aka the Institute for Applied Network Security). These are closed, no-press conferences which have a Confidentiality Statement associated with them that generally prohibits discussion of anything one might hear in sessions or elsewhere. This is, BTW, good security practice. Neither I nor anyone else I spoke with discussed the actual solutions they had in place. I recommend this position to everyone.
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I sometimes (OK, often) spend the weekend catching up on reading, and I started this weekend with Brad Reed's interesting piece in Network World on WiMAX technology in search of its niche.
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I first wrote about RF Spectrum Management (RFSM) almost five years ago, and my feeling at the time was that, while very difficult, management of wireless LANs at the physical layer was not only possible, but would ultimately become a competitive battleground. Over the years, essentially every enterprise-class WLAN systems vendor developed their own take on setting channel assignments and transmit power levels, but really taming the airwaves remains challenging, partially because the bands used by WLANs are unlicensed and therefore subject to both interference and strict limitations on transmit power, and partially because the client-in-control protocols used in .11 simply don't allow the degree of control one would expect from a fundamentally cellular architecture. Allowing clients to decide with which AP to associate and when to roam is madness. But that's the legacy of a standard developed much too early, before the usage models of WLANs had a chance to evolve. Ad-hoc was assumed to be the connection mode most users would apply, rather than today's world in which infrastructure mode is clearly dominant for obvious reasons.
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The rumors (which, again, I never spread) that Sprint would turn on its first XOHM city, Baltimore, next week, turned out to be off by a few days. And folks in that town woke up today to the fastest wireless wide-area production broadband network in the country (and one of the fastest in the world), along with interesting pricing and the promise of more cities and more subscriber units - including a dual-mode CDMA/WiMAX handset - shortly. Quick analysis: This deployment is aimed at consumers, not businesses, as, unless you do all of your business in Baltimore, this ain't going to work for most of us. Throughput - the press release notes 2-4 Mbps - is in line with expectations, as is the pricing, at US$25-30/month ($25 for fixed, and $30 for mobile). A surprising feature is a $10 daily price, a la municipal Wi-Fi, but I don't think this is going to be a big seller. There's also a "Pick 2 for Life" family plan of sorts; not a huge discount, but anything helps. And they note no requirement for long-term contracts or cancellation fees, a surprising and most welcome plus.
The XOHM site talks about other cities coming on line soon, including Chicago and Washington, D.C., followed by Dallas, Forth Worth, Boston, Providence, and Philadelphia. But without a critical mass of say, the top 30 municipalities, with coverage extending beyond city centers and well into the suburbs, XOHM isn't going to compete for business users with broadband offerings from the other carriers, even if it is (for the moment) faster and cheaper. And it remains to be seen how the service and pricing will be affected by the transfer of ownership to Clearwire, which is plowing ahead.
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Let me say up front that I think LINUX in perhaps multiple forms and flavors will become, by far, the most popular platform on mobile devices over time. This has partly to do with the fact that it's essentially free, that so many programmers know how to make it work, and that the iPhone, the most influential handset (after the BlackBerry line) ever, is really about cool interface, and LINUX will have that, too. Right now, depending upon whom you believe, the Symbian OS has more than 50% market share in the handset platform market. Symbian is going open source to counter LINUX and other competition, but I don't think that's going to matter. LINUX will have, within a few years, the largest installed base and the most momentum here. Which LINUX? Maybe Android, maybe not, but let's assume Android for the moment.
And we're just getting our first look at the first Google Android implementation, the G1 from T-Mobile (note this is a truly horrible, information-free site, but at least it's official). Not a good name for a product, in my opinion - sounds like 1G and I'm sure some people will refer to it as such, whether in error or not (the T-Mobile guy I spoke with on Tuesday called it a 1G; go figure). My initial reaction: it's a bit big, but that means more screen and (at least in theory) a more usable keyboard. The design is your basic slider; many will like the physical keyboard in favor of the iPhone's touch-screen-only arrangement. It has Wi-Fi (all successful enterprise-class products will), GPS (everyone loves Google Maps, don't they?), a 3.2 Mpixel camera (all enterprises hate cameras, don't they?), and an SD slot (but no tethered data), and it's cheap - US$179. It has to be cheaper than a low-end iPhone 3G, but it's not an iPhone killer - again, nothing is or can be.
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Ben Gibson at Cisco was kind enough to point out that there's a slight error in my Network World article on WLAN Management. Cisco has in fact integrated the Spectrum Expert functionality into their WCS console, but what I was trying to say here is that I expect that future management systems (most notably Cisco's, because, after all, they already own the chips required) will consider RF interference as a parameter in overall system management.
And, secondly, in retrospect it's not entirely fair to say that the system-level WLAN management tools won't be able to handle the tasks currently accomplished by the ad-hoc tools I'm currently testing. Most of these are client tools anyway. This brings up, however, an interesting question - just how much functionality will a given management product embody? Will IDS/IPS be rolled up into the management system? Will wireless LAN assurance tools (AirMagnet, OmniPeek, etc.)? Will all manner of widgets and gadgets? What does a complete set of WLAN management functionality actually look like, especially as we move to unified networks?
I'll try to answer some of these issues in the upcoming Network World articles.
The two articles on wireless-LAN management I previously mentioned are out in this week's Network World. The first is a general overview of functionality along with a wish list of features that I think you'll see as this space evolves, and the second is a review of the AirWave Management Platform (AMP), a multi-vendor WLAN management system. There is also a sidebar that notes I'm still knee-deep (or deeper) in this topic, and I'm just starting a comprehensive review of ad-hoc WLAN management tools that will appear in a monthly series of five articles starting in November.
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It was really interesting, in the sense of the old curse "may you live in interesting times", to have been in New York all this past week, ostensibly attending a technology conference, but hearing at least as much about the foolishness going on all week on Wall Street. Physics, our little corner of reality, can't be fooled. Exploited, yes, but fooled, no. Quite the opposite from what was going on in big office buildings right around the corner from my hotel. And guess who gets stuck with the bill now? You and me. And what did we do wrong?
But things were decidedly more upbeat at Mobile Business Expo. I structured the program this year around key areas of debate, and that we had. Here are the big ones, at least from the sessions I was able to attend:
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The California Public Utilities Commission yesterday banned the use of mobile devices by train operators, following the tragic crash of a commuter train that took many lives and caused unfathomable misery. I've held off commenting on this event because it was yet to be established that the crash was absolutely the result of the train operator texting while driving, but the evidence now is quite clear. And as I wrote back in January, it's also clear that most people cannot drive and operate a mobile communications device at the same time. California acted to legislate what should be common sense. Just as is the case in bailing out Wall Street this morning, the government is putting regulation in place, but too late to avoid what should have never occurred in the first place.
Bottom line: It's time to ban the use of any form of communications device while operating a motor vehicle. Period. No exceptions. Want to talk or text? Pull over.
Does anyone seriously want to debate this point?
I first proposed about a year ago (here, of all places) the concept of what I call a virtual cell phone. The idea is simple: allow a single handset to have multiple numbers, ideally associated with specific capabilities and storage on a given handset with some form of firewall between them so that (a) security and integrity can be maintained, and (b) the enterprise can manage the "enterprise" side, including zapping it if necessary, while the end-user controls the "personal side". We're not quite there yet, but Agito Network's recent announcement of their "dual persona" feature is a step in the right direction.
Farpoint Group puts Agito overall in the category of enterprise-centric convergence products, equipment that an enterprise can buy to implement mobile-to-mobile convergence without requiring the assistance or approval of a carrier. I like this approach because it allows the enterprise to manage costs, use the most appropriate network at any given moment in time, and in general move their telecom infrastructure into the modern era. While not providing the hard isolation I mentioned above, dual persona allows a single handset to have two numbers associated with it for both inbound and outbound calling. Separate accounting entries can thus be maintained, and users can keep their familiar cellular number for personal calling while using their enterprise number for business. Pretty cool.
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So a question came up yesterday during my tutorial at MBX - what's going to happen to throughput on cellular networks over the next few years, and ditto for prices. I've contended for some time that any discussion of 100 Mbps (LTE and WiMAX Wave-2 speeds) on future networks is purely academic. We can certainly increase overall capacity by improved modulation techniques and splitting big cells into smaller cells. The question is, though, whether the carriers intend to lead us to this new land of abundance and landline equivalency, or whether they'll instead practice the more contemporary approach of better profits through scarcity. Unfortunately, my money's on the latter.
Just look around. The economy continues to sour (although it's nowhere near, as some have claimed, a new depression), and investment across the board is being cut back. Oddly, there's often improved profits in this approach; just look at the oil industry (less supply for whatever reason, increasing demand, and thus higher prices, and, with managed costs, improved profits) and the airlines (eliminate unprofitable routes and cut back on service overall, and ditto), and it's not hard to see that there's big bucks in scarcity. In a properly functioning economy, of course, someone would step in and create more supply, thereby correcting the imbalance and ultimately driving prices lower. But in today's economy, and especially with respect to industries that require massive investment (oil, airlines, and cellular), such investment isn't possible. There's no money. So some industries might (and in the case of the airlines, will) even shrink a bit, but they can make more money by offering less or even worse service until (and if) core demand subsides. That won't happen in the case of cellular. We can drive and fly less, but it's hard to talk less. And most will give up landlines before they give up cellular.
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Whew - September's half over, and so are my travels. I've received permission to write up both the Silicon Valley project (examining meshes as an extension to corporate wireless LANs) and the Seattle project (some novel advances in RF Spectrum Management) as Farpoint Group White Papers or Technical Notes. I'm working on these now and should have both for you around the end of the month. This week, though, is New York and Interop/MBX; if you're in the neighborhood, please stop by the Javits Center to take in the program. I've been working on it for over six months, and I think it's one of the best I've ever had the pleasure to be associated with.
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I've spoken with a number of people in recent months about what we might call the "e-mail problem". E-mail has never been reliable, but the clear requirement for spam filtering has made is less so. There's no such thing as a perfect spam filter, and I'm sure all of us are living with missed e-mail messages as a result. IM is one alternative, I know, but maybe something more all-encompassing is required.
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Late last week, I spoke with the folks at Positive Networks, who, as it turns out, are in the process of evolving from a hosted VPN business (which has in fact been sold off) to one selling a really cool authentication product. In a nutshell, their new offering uses a cell phone as the second factor in a two-factor authentication scheme. It's called PhoneFactor, and it's worth a look - in fact, one version of it is free.
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Right up there with phased arrays in importance as a key radio technology direction is software defined radio, or SDR. The idea here is to replace dedicated hardware implementations of specific radios with their software equivalent, running on really fast processors like digital signal processors (DSPs, which, if you've not heard of these, are simply very powerful microprocessors optimized for mathematical operations). The benefits of this approach are many: flexibility, component reuse across designs (thereby lowering engineering expense), being able to fix bugs and add features in the field, longer shelf and useful lives for specific implementations, and lower cost-to-solution, among others.
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I'm always happy to receive comments and questions on what I write, so please feel free to past anything of interest right here. Or you can call or e-mail, although it may take a little longer to get back to you that way.
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I'm from San Francisco, but I've lived more than half my life in New England, and have gradually learned the language. The adjective "wicked" is frequently applied in these parts to mean "exceptional", or "cool", so "wicked cool", a term frequently heard, must imply something really special. For our purposes here today, it does indeed.
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There is no doubt that all media is going digital. And while I think it will remain possible quite far into the future to curl up by the fire with a good book, it will be much more likely that it will be some form of electronic book reader that will be keeping you warm instead. If you've not seen these, think of them as .mp3 players for words and illustrations, and many can also play those .mp3s.
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As you all know, I'm a big fan of the Asus Eee PC Mobile Internet Device (MID). I regularly use one of the (already-obsolete) original 700-series models, and, while I do plan to replace it shortly with a MID with a larger screen, I don't have any real complaints about the Eee. It's been usable, reliable, and functional enough to replace a traditional notebook when I travel.
So Asus is now shipping the Eee Box, which is basically the guts of one of their newer Atom-based MIDs packaged as a tiny desktop replacement. It's small enough to travel with, and one might think of it as a relocateble desktop PC perfect for some field applications.
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Just a little background: a group of MIT students hacked the MBTA's (known as the "T") "CharlieCard" stored-value RFID system and attempted to publish a paper on their findings at the recent DEFCON event. They were slapped with an injunction/lawsuit, and MIT was also named in the suit. The injunction was lifted yesterday, with the judge citing misapplication of a computer fraud law as the reason. So the students are free, for the moment, anyway, to proceed.
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I've had a number of conversations recently regarding my enthusiasm for Mobile Internet Devices, or MIDs. I define these as compact (10-inch-or-less display) notebook computers running LINUX and optimized for price, portability, and Web access, although they do run local applications including OpenOffice. Some people, by the way, refer to these as "Netbooks" when they run Windows XP, but the hardware is usually the same, and, regardless, I can't see any reason why most users shouldn't be running LINUX anyway other than if one absolutely must run that seriously overpriced Microsoft Office.
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Truth be told, I've been writing a lot about the iPhone 3G lately because, despite the tone of my last entry, I'm still thinking about getting one. I need to replace the Q as early as next month, and, given my compendium of requirements, the iPhone remains at the top of the list. As I've noted before, the walled-garden approach isn't unappealing to me; I'm a computer-science major, but I have a business to run and a job to do. So the Mac is a decent platform to base it all on, and the iPhone goes hand-in-hand with the Mac. Is that great marketing, or what?
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So Steve Jobs revealed in the WSJ that there is in fact a (to this point hidden) mechanism in the iPhone that allows Apple to remove, directly from a given iPhone, any code they don't like. Sure, users - and cellular networks - need to be protected from fraud and hackers. But shouldn't Apple have documented this "feature"? And what else might in there?
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HP Procurve just announced that they are buying Colubris Networks, a company that's been around since the early days (2000) of enterprise-class WLANs. Colubris specializes in public-access applications, most notably in the hospitality industry, as well as the non-carpeted areas of the enterprise, but has a broad base of installations across many industries. They also have a contemporary, direct-forwarding architecture and a very visible profile in WLANs overall. HP is, well, HP, and let's face it, many forget that HP is also a major supplier of WLANs.
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Lord knows the airlines need something. They've been squeezed between high fuel prices and their own inability to offer decent customer service. But there's still a competitive market for air travel out there, albeit at higher prices and with less availability and the requirement of extreme patience on the part of the traveler.
The flyboys and girls need more revenue. So JetBlue is charging US$7 for a pillow and a blanket, but they note that said pillow and blanket will actually be clean and are yours to keep - carrying case included.
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I was speaking with my friend and colleague Keith Shaw this afternoon. Keith, of course, is the gadgets guy at Network World and his reviews and podcasts are highly recommended for anyone who's in the market for a personal or enterprise mobile anything, or just interested in what's new and exciting. Keith usually finds out about new stuff sooner than anyone else I know, and, of course, refuses to say how he does it.
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So I hear that China is attempting to censor access to the Internet for journalists reporting at the upcoming Olympics. No surprise here. It's amazing how arguments relating to "national security" so often devolve into simple fascism. It's been said that only those with something to hide need to worry about security - implying a strange twist on the content-just-wants-to-be-free argument, which is itself often no more than a justification for theft. Thievery or fascism? Now there's a choice!
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Motorola just announced that they are buying AirDefense, one of the leading IDS/IPS vendors in the WLAN space and arguably the company that invented the field to begin with. AirDefense has been around for a good while now, and they have a large installed base of customers across many industries and markets. And they've been working with Motorola for some time; the two products lines integrated to a good degree, and more is promised in this announcement.
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One of my pet peeves is poor-quality products. Actually, it's way more than a pet peeve. Products with obvious flaws have been known to cause bad language here at Farpoint Group, and very bad language at that. I can't imagine why anyone would ship a product that doesn't work, or isn't at least functional to the point of meeting its published specs. Sure, wireless introduces a statistical quality to any radio-based product or service, but there's no excuse for outright bugs. Windows has just driven me right up the wall over the years because the quality of the code is so poor. I just can't deal with Microsoft anymore; I've given up. So - problems like this can get very serious indeed.
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Mathias is a principal at Farpoint Group, a wireless advisory firm in Ashland, Mass.
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