Wireless Lans: Connect flaw

Interest in wireless Lans is rising, but users are refusing to match that with demand for product. Is the standard - designed to champion the technology - holding back its development and can the industry solve the lack of interoperability between vendors' equipment?

Thanks to technologies such as GSM and DECT, the spotlight has once again fallen on the issue of wireless Lan connectivity. Yet despite renewed user interest, demand for actual product is falling short of expectation.

Many observers agree there should be significant demand from palmtop, handheld and laptop users wanting to connect to their office PC while on the move, but that - so far - has failed to happen.

Clive Girling, marketing director at Portable Add-Ons, claims: 'It is no longer permissible for a laptop to be used in isolation. It must be as well connected as any desktop machine - either at the desktop, when moving around the office or out on the road.' Yet despite this, user demand remains distinctly lightweight he says: 'As a primary distributor for the mobile computing market, we are not seeing high levels of demand for wireless networking products.'

Nick Hunn, development manager at TDK Systems Europe, apportions much of the blame - as does wireless Lan card manufacturer Proxim - on the shortcomings of the 802.11 standard. 'OK, it'll do everything that you would want to do with a mobile connected network. It will allow users to be handed over from one access point to another seamlessly, for example. But that creates a lot of overhead.'

Hunn believes the standard's complexity means data throughput speeds suffer dramatically. 'You drop down from a base rate of 1Mbit/s to something more like 20-30Kbit/s,' he says. 'It's fine for the person who just wants to pop their laptop down and connect to the Lan without plugging in a cable and it's also good for those who want to play games against each other on their laptops when they get bored at a conference. But as a complete replacement for a standard (wired) network interface card, 802.11 is pretty pathetic,' adds Hunn. 'The effective range is not very impressive either.'

Girling agrees: 'Wireless networking today cannot deliver on the user's requirement. It is too slow, too restrictive and too complex to support and set up and therefore isn't invisible to the users.' He believes that in order for wireless networking to be successful, the user must be able to 'connect anytime, anyplace, anywhere - without thought'.

As usual, there's no such thing as a completely original idea within the IT industry. And wireless Lans are no exception. Interest in wireless Lan connectivity has been seen several times before, according to Hunn.

'We've been very close to developing one (a wireless NIC PC Card),' he says. 'We had a prototype ready about the same time that Xircom launched its own version (Netwave) some three to four years ago.' However, reaction to the product from prospective users wasn't positive. 'In a nutshell, it wasn't very effective. We showed it off to a number of corporates that were distinctly underwhelmed,' Hunn admits.

Mike Welbrock, financial director at mobile computing specialist distributor PPCP, has noted the beginnings of demand for wireless Lan products. 'Interest in all wireless comms seems to be rising, thanks chiefly to DECT, GSM and so on,' he observes. 'People are deploying it more and more - GSM especially. But GSM primarily addresses the demands for email and faxing and, only to a limited extent, Web browsing.'

Asked what market sectors seem most interested in this aspect of mobile computing, Welbrock suggests retail and warehousing are good examples. 'Other markets include consultancy and auditing,' he adds. 'For instance, an auditing team will go into a client's office and work together using wireless kit. Also it's good in hospitals - but then regulatory and/or interference considerations come into play.'

Paul Munnery, managing director with Breezecom (EMEA), is more optimistic. He claims that in the first quarter after 802.11's ratification - the third quarter of 1997 - sales of wireless Lan products were up 200 per cent over the previous quarter.

Since then, Breezecom has seen an average increase of between 25 and 30 per cent per quarter. Munnery attributes these rises to pent-up demand within government organisations such as NHS trusts and the educational sector which were waiting for an independent standard before purchasing.

An independent report from market research firm IDC - Wireless Lans: Worldwide Market Review and Forecast, 1997-2003 - also paints a similarly optimistic picture. The report says shipments will rise from just over one million units per annum in 1998 to about four million by 2003. Proxim is the market leader according to IDC, with roughly 30 per cent of the total market. Elsewhere, Ericsson - which has just released its own wireless Lan product based on 802.11 - has valued the wireless Lan infrastructure market at $1 billion annually by the year 2000.

Yet many industry players believe this figure could be a lot higher if it were not for apparent divisions between the leading manufacturers.

Brian Button, vice president for sales and marketing at Proxim, argues that recent attempts by US IT publications to test purportedly 802.11-based products against each other failed, mainly because most of the key players refused to provide loan kit. He maintains that there is almost no interoperability between 802.11 products from different vendors.

Welbrock agrees: 'Either manufacturers interpret 802.11 individually, or the standard is not very clearly defined,' he says. 'Factors such as susceptibility to interference, operational range and so on vary enormously from vendor to vendor. The only way to ensure smooth operation is to use kit from a single manufacturer.'

By contrast, when asked if he thought that interoperability between 802.11 products from different vendors was a problem, Paul Sherry, business development manager at Nortel Networks says, 'No, not at all.' Xircom's original wireless Lan product, Netwave, was spun off into a separate firm called Netwave. This company was subsequently acquired by Bay Networks which itself is now part of Nortel.

Sherry claims independent collaboration of 802.11 interoperability has been carried out at the University of New Hampshire.

He maintains that he has seen his products work with those from other leading manufacturers, including Breezecom.

At Breezecom, Mannery argues, the 802.11 is not as divided as Proxim claims. He says Breezecom has so far chaired the relevant IEEE interoperability committee and has been carrying out interoperability testing at its R&D labs in Israel.

'It depends on exactly what you mean by interoperability,' Munnery says.

'Most users would expect interoperability to work both ways - so that one vendor's cards work with another vendor's access points and vice versa.' Consequently, according to this criterion, Breezecom claims its own products will work both ways with Symbol's products.

But Button is insistent that 802.11 isn't a workable system since it requires too much power from the majority of devices to which it is meant to be applicable, namely portable computers, PDAs and handheld terminals.

Instead, Button maintains that Open Air - a standard from the Wireless Lan Industry Federation (WLIF) - is the answer since it has been included in the latest relevant Microsoft package, Windows CE Professional Edition.

Button argues that Microsoft's backing will provide sufficient impetus to establish Open Air as the de facto industry standard for wireless Lans. Naturally, Open Air is the specification to which the main Proxim product range is built.

Elsewhere, one of the obvious alternatives to Open Air is Bluetooth - a standard for wireless data which has support from key players in both the IT and mobile telephony industries. 'Bluetooth is interesting in concept as it addresses the interoperability issue which has caused problems for 802.11, says Welbrock. 'Plus it is also low power and doesn't require line-of-sight such as IrDA (the industry standard for infra-red communications).

This makes it an interesting and more attractive prospect to PPCP as I can immediately see applications involving palmtop or CE-based devices,' he adds

Bluetooth still won't offer the same kind of speeds achieved using fixed wire Lans. But Welbrock adds: 'In terms of speed, I don't think people expect a wireless Lan to operate at the same speed as a conventional network, in the same way they don't expect GSM to work at ISDN speeds.'

But Bluetooth might triumph over 802.11 for another reason. Hunn reveals that not only do both technologies utilise the same part of the spectrum (2.45GHz), but they also employ frequency hopping techniques. The catch is that since Bluetooth 'hops' over a thousand times more frequently than 802.11, Bluetooth will effectively 'drown out' anyone trying to use 802.11 in the same environment - such as an office.

Proxim's Button claims that Bluetooth won't succeed since it will fail to reach its projected price point - between $5 and $6 per computer - and in his estimation is more likely to come in at a $35 price point at best.

Although an active Bluetooth supporter, Hunn agrees that wireless networking is too expensive, working out at about $1,000 per connection. 'For wireless to be effective, it has to be cheap. You still have costs involved with standard cabling, such as installation, but that works out to about the sub $100 mark,' he says.

But Sherry doesn't believe price is the most important consideration.

'Three things were constraining this market,' he says. 'It (wireless Lan technology) was viewed as slow, expensive and proprietary. My expectation is that prices will fall. We are already beginning to see products entering the US market at about the $300 mark.' Sherry hints that he expects the same pattern will soon follow in the UK.

Yet of those three restraining factors, Sherry views the emergence of 802.11 as the most important. He argues: 'The IEEE specification is the only truly vendor independent specification. If you look at those supporting Proxim, they are all Proxim customers.'

He adds: 'What has been holding this sector back is that the likes of Tesco, for example don't want to be tied into a single manufacturer.

Until recently, they have not been offered a system that is truly vendor independent. Now we are beginning to see 802.11 wake up real interest among the corporate market.'

Naturally, Sherry believes the entrance of leading, respected datacomms vendors into the wireless Lan market is lending it serious credence.

'The takeover of Netwave by Bay - and now Nortel - has helped to legitimise the technology and I'm being taken seriously by accounts I couldn't have previously won as Netwave (a small independent supplier),' he says.

Sherry believes the third restraining factor - speed - will soon be removed. 'A faster version of 802.11 is well under way and close to ratification.

It will offer a throughput speed of 11Mbit/s, but for simplicity this will almost certainly be marketed as 10Mbit/s,' he explains.

'We already have compatible products under development and I'm confident we'll have product to show people some time around the second quarter this year,' he adds.

To date, most products have been aimed at the business market, but Proxim's latest range - Symphony - is being aimed at the home networking market for applications such as modem sharing and multi-user gaming.

'You're starting to see non-IT companies utilise the technology. For example, Symbol has used 802.11 to create a voice over IP cordless handset,' Sherry says.

But perhaps the most important development has been the entry of traditional wireless telephony vendors into the market such as Ericsson, which has a live 802.11 system currently being shown at Arlanda airport in Stockholm, Sweden.

Add to that the participation of leading datacomms vendors in Bay/Nortel, plus Lucent Technologies, and the wireless Lan sector looks set to hot up in the very near future.

THE WIRELESS NETWORKING STANDARDS

One of the problems with wireless data standards is that they are all aiming to share the same available spectrum - the 2.45GHz frequency band - since it's part of the ISM (Industrial, Scientific and Medical) spectrum. The other snag is that most also use frequency-hopping spread spectrum radio frequency technology.

The list of potential wireless Lan standards includes two separate version of the IEEE's 802.11 (wireless Ethernet) standard: one which is the popular Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS) and the other is Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS). In fact, the 802.11 standard was ratified back in July 1997 so that the first true 802.11 products only came onto the market back in the third quarter of 1997.

Then there is OpenAir, a standard set by the Wireless Lan Interoperability Forum (WLIF). Although it is a non-profit organisation of more than 25 wireless vendors, Proxim's RangeLAN2 package is basically the only certified OpenAir product. In addition, Proxim has a large installed base since its RangeLAN2 product family was first introduced back in 1994. However, Proxim hedges its bets since it also offers a 2Mbit/s RangeLAN802 product family which is 802.11 compliant.

However, there is an obvious transatlantic divide. While Open Air may be popular in North America, DECT and Bluetooth enjoy considerable backing in Europe.

Bluetooth is a wireless standard being promoted by the leading mobile phone handset manufacturers such as Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola, as well as IT companies like IBM, Toshiba and Intel.

An arch-rival to Bluetooth takes the form of SWAP (Shared Wireless Access Protocol). These standards have been originated by the Home Radio Frequency Working Groups (HRFWG) and utilise elements of DECT (Digital European Cordless Telephony). There are two versions: a high-spec, multi-media product (SWAP-MM), and a lower cost alternative (SWAP-LITE). Although DECT frequencies are not available in North America (as they are already given over to digital telephony), manufacturers taking this route hope to take advantage of existing DECT components to save on costs.

The dark horse is HIPERLAN (HIgh PERformance Local Area Network) - the European (ETSI) standard (300/328) for wireless Lans operating at 2.45GHz.

However, HIPHERLAN does not define the air interface, so 802.11 could be used.