Whatever the motive, the rumour turned out to be true and BT along with its technical partners in this enterprise, Cisco and Motorola, plans to launch the UK's first public access wireless LAN (WLAN) network in June 2002.
Wireless LAN, whether based on the IEEE 802.11 or the Bluetooth standard, is a security nightmare. It often includes the parking lot and public roads - leading to the phrase 'drive by hacking' to refer to WLAN interception.
There are two basic business models for public WLAN (PWLAN) service provision: you charge folks for using it or you don't. Slowly, due to this competitive pressure, all hotels would migrate to offering free public WLAN services.
That's because unified communications is about to thrust itself into the office of the future with the emergence of converged networks where voice, data and video all use the same IP pipe. A handy feature of the WLAN IP phone is that a company...
Randy Guisto, vice president, personal technologies and services at IDC, said in a statement: "In lean economic times, providing a wireless LAN is a low priority for many IT organisations, while lower price points on wireless access points has...
Ajay Mishra, manager of the WLAN service providers solution desk at Cisco, said Wi-Fi has already become a must-have for the enterprise. Wireless LAN has really moved to business critical," he said. What this is doing is driving wireless LAN...