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Intel, Proxim, both jump regulatory gun on WiFi5 50 megabit WLAN

There were raised eye-brows at Intel, after Proxim announced that its high-speed WLAN based on 802.11a standards would be "first in the UK" - where Intel has been selling 11a WiFi5 products for some time. Both require "special" approvals, however.

Intel has responded with wry amusement to Proxim's statement at Networld+Interop show in Las Vegas that Proxim has "become the first company to market high-speed 802.11a wireless networking solutions (WLAN) in the United Kingdom - with today's announcement that its secure, high-speed Harmony 802.11a product has been approved for sale here."

In fact, the approval situation for 11a remains cloudy, and Intel has been shipping its 11a components for some weeks, through resellers, complete with a special form to apply for the necessary licence.

Intel, too, has gone for WiFi5 in a big way with the launch at N+I of a dual-standard access point doing both WiFi and WiFi5 together, with the Intel PRO/Wireless 5000 LAN AP.

Also, Intel demonstrated its first internally developed wireless LAN chipset capable of operating as both a Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi5 client. Intel's dual band wireless LAN chipset will be available later this year and is compliant with both the 802.11b and 802.11a standards.

More significantly, perhaps, Proxim also announced that it will deliver IEEE 802.1x security in its Harmony 802.11a products, which probably is a "first" - if it actually ships it first, that is.

Adding 802.1x to existing security features provides enterprises with greater protection against wireless LAN (WLAN) security attacks "and simplifies security management by leveraging existing authentication databases for both the wireless and wired network," said the press release. The "approval" issue is bound to cause minor ripples in the industry, however.

Proxim has decided to introduce two 802.11a product lines to the United Kingdom, targeted at different business sectors. The first is the Harmony range; the second is the Skyline brand.

Harmony is aimed at the enterprise market, with features for centralised security and advanced management- plus a multi-standard architecture making it simpler for enterprises to migrate from 802.11b to 802.11a, and to other future technologies.

The Skyline 802.11a products are designed for small organizations without a network manager. "They offer the same high speeds as Harmony with simplified deployment and management," said the company.

But the approval which Proxim is claiming, while necessary, is not a wireless regulatory approval; it has merely achieved the "CE" regulatory approval, which is necessary for any product to be sold into the European electronics markets. Essentially, it says little more than that the part is electrically safe.

The reason it's a triumph is that a year ago, when Proxim was starting to negotiate to have its 11a product launched (it appeared in November), there was a major political move to have the 802.11a standard quashed, in favour of the High Performance LAN standard (Hiperlan) version II, which uses the same 5 GHz radio frequency; and it was suggested that CE approval would be withheld as a way of ensuring that the new standard didn't crush Hiperlan. That hurdle has been cleared.

But the issue of ETSI approval remains undecided; and in the UK, you can't install 11a without applying for a per-site licence. Cost of this licence isn't a killer; a six month site licence costs around £50. Intel - and Proxim - are counting on having the approval issue sorted out by the time any of these temporary licences expire - before the end of 2002, that is.

"Nothing is certain," commented Intel's wireless marketing chief, David Bradshaw, "but the Radio communications Authority has timetabled this for the same time frame as its approval of public access wireless - that is, the back end of summer. We'd expect 11a approval to be done before the end of the year; and the UK is actually going to be behind other European countries on this."

Proxim's Harmony 802.11a and Skyline 802.11a products will be available in the UK in May. To find a reseller near you, please call 01494-563737 or e-mail the marketing department.