Supporting devices around 802.11n are becoming increasingly mature

While the transmission performance of 802.11n is constantly expanding and large-scale 802.11n application deployment is constantly emerging, we are also delighted to see gaps in the 802.11n peripheral devices, these are the reasons for making 802.11n more mature, and they will make the role of the 802.11n innovator more consolidated.

As we all know, WLAN design and planning tools are good assistants for wireless network administrators. However, with the popularization of 802.11n application deployment, it will be a lot of trouble if the corresponding tools cannot keep up. Fortunately, some companies have successively launched new version planning and management tools that support 802.11n. For example, Motorola's latest LANPlanner upgrade can be used to plan and manage 802.11n high-throughput access points. With this version of LANPlanner, network administrators can take building diagrams from programs such as AutoCAD as input parameters and assign Radio Frequency Propagation Characteristics to materials used in floors and walls, you can also drag the icon representing the 802.11n access point directly into it. Subsequently, LANPlanner generates data and images showing the expected radio coverage and throughput.

Motorola's new LANPlanner tool will support 802.11n Planning and Management

Like other WLAN vendors, Motorola is also actively selling 802.11n devices, but one of the key issues is to have a wizard for network migration. This network migration wizard guides network planners to complete possible 802.11n Deployment Scenarios: Creating an 802.11n WLAN, replacing an existing wireless network or a hybrid 802.11a/B/g/n network. With the help of the new Wizard, the administrator can see the existing performance and coverage, and then use the 802.11n device to replace some or all existing access points to see how the network will change. According to Motorola's tests, in some cases, 802.11n performance may decline faster and larger than 11a/B/g, and such behavior can be captured and visualized using the new version of LANPlanner.

Karen Weir, wireless broadband department product manager of Motorola, said the reason for this decline is that 802.11n's multi-antenna technology has been a headache in the 11a/B/G network in the past: radio signals reflected back and forth on different surfaces. If you place 802.11n in an open environment or long corridor, this "multi-path" phenomenon will become very weak, so the performance of 802.11n will also rapidly decline.

Coincidentally, Ekahau, a U. S. provider focusing on Wi-Fi real-time positioning systems, also announced that the company's Ekahau RTLS location tracking solution and Ekahau Site Survey ("ESS ") the Wi-Fi network planning and optimization tool will be seamlessly integrated with the 802.11n standard. The latter will facilitate the planning of the outdoor network and help check and repair 802.11n devices after deployment.

The 802.11n blind spot on the WLAN Intrusion Detection System IPS will also be compensated, airTight Networks plans to launch the new SpectraGuard Enterprise wireless IPS version in middle September, which will change the status quo of detecting signals from 802.11n devices and help network administrators identify and manage 802.11n access points and client devices.

Like many similar products, SpectraGuard also includes wireless sensors that can scan the 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequencies in a certain location, and Management Software for monitoring, analyzing and scanning data, and preventing wireless connections to fraudulent devices. The version 5.7 to be released includes a new dual-Radio Sensor Based on the Atheros MD8082 802.11a/B/g/n chipset) that can detect the radio signature in the 802.11n device. Using a smaller and more compact design, the sensor can run two radio devices simultaneously, covering all 802.11 transmission in two frequencies.

AirTight also released a free interactive planning tool that generates an overview of the 802.11n deployment in the plan, and compare it with the existing 802.11a/B/G network.

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