The Wi-Fi Alliance expects to certify its WPA (Wi-Fi
Protected Access) set of specifications by May, in the first of
several efforts to provide greater security to users of high-speed
wireless networks.
WPA is a subset of the 802.11i security standard, which has yet
to be approved by the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers).
The alliance, launched in 1999 as a nonprofit organization to
certify interoperability of IEEE 802.11 products, expected
approval from the standards body as early as the third quarter of
this year, according to Brian Grim, marketing director for the
alliance.
Around a month after that, the group will begin its
certification program, ensuring that all Wi-Fi products of its
members are interoperable. Products with 802.11i-standardised
security features should be available later in the fourth
quarter.
Once approved and certified, the 802.11i standard will be called
WPA2 and will be backward compatible with WPA.
The alliance also expected the IEEE to approve the faster
802.11g standard by June or August, said Andrea Vocale, a technical
expert with the alliance and also business development manager of
wireless networking at the Cisco Systems' UK subsidiary.
"Once the standard has been approved, we can move ahead quickly
with the certification," he added.
The first "unplug fest", which gives developers and other groups
time to work with the 802.11g standard, has already taken place,
Vocale said, a\lthough he declined to comment on the results. The
goal of the "fest" is to work out technical bugs.
The 802.11g standard, operating in the 2.4GHz band, provides
speeds up to 54Mbps (bits per second). It will be backward
compatible to the widely used 802.11b standard, operating in the
same band but offering speeds up to 11Mbps.
The 802.11a standard, which occupies the 5GHz band, also
provides speeds up to 54Mbps.
The Wi-Fi Alliance intends to drop the 802.11 a, b and g
classifications and replace them with the frequency and speed of
each wireless access service in its Wi-Fi zone programme, informing
users of certified Wi-Fi locations.
A Wi-Fi Zone sign posted at relevant hot-spot locations will
show arrows pointing to the available wireless services. The
services include 11Mbps and 54Mbps transmission in the 2.4GHz
range, and 54M bps service in the 5GHz range.
The Wi-Fi Alliance officially opened its zone-finding search
engine yesterday, Vocale said. The search engine, found at the
alliance's website
www.wi-fi.org, will list all
hotspots that meet specific criteria to ensure quality service.
"We've just started to collect information on the many locations
around the world, so what you see in our database today is just the
beginning," Vocale said.
The US and Europe each have between 2,000 and 3,000 public
hotspots and Asia around 5,000, Vocale said. "But this year will be
the year of the wireless Internet. We expect many more
thousands."
As for any one of the 802.11 standards pushing the other aside,
Vocale said that each had its own advantages. The 802.11a standard,
which some experts believe could be eclipsed by the equally fast
802.11g, could find its niche in the home market, supporting video
streaming and multimedia applications.
Chip makers will likely put all three 802.11 standards on the
same silicon and allow Wi-Fi equipment vendors to activate
whichever standard or standards they wish, Grim said.
In Europe and Asia, Wi-Fi will be a "service provider's play",
with smaller network companies likely to dominate the US market,
Vocale said.