A security specification unveiled this week may help
pave the way for more wireless Lans in large
enterprises.
The Wi-Fi Alliance announced its first product certifications
under the new WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) specification, naming
equipment and components from Atheros Communications, Broadcom,
Cisco Systems, Intel, Intersil and Symbol Technologies.
WPA is a subset of the IEEE 802.11i standard, which has not yet
been approved. It improves upon the WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy)
technology now included in 802.11, most importantly by replacing
WEP's static encryption key with a dynamic one and incorporating
the 802.1x standard for user authentication.
With broad supplier support, WPA may go a long way toward
simplifying enterprise wireless Lan deployments because it provides
consistency across suppliers.
Buffalo Technology announced it would ship WPA-enabled products
by the middle of this month. They include the AirStation 54Mbps
Wireless Broadband Base Station and the AirStation G54 Wireless
Notebook Adapter, a PC Card client device with an interface for an
external 2.4GHz antenna. The products are based on a Broadcom
chipset.
D-Link Systems said that its AirPlus, AirPremiere, AirPlus
Xtreme G and AirExpert AGB wireless Lan product lines will be
equipped with WPA by the end of the second quarter, available both
in shipping products and in free firmware upgrades for existing
customers.
Linksys Group will make WPA available in its Wireless-G products
via firmware and software upgrades from
www.linksys.com by the end of
this month. By the end of August, Linksys expects to provide WPA
upgrades for many of its Wireless Dual-Band A+G and Wireless-B
products.
NetGear expects to provide a WPA firmware upgrade for its Model
ME103 802.11b ProSafe Wireless Access Point, a product geared
toward businesses, by the end of June.
The company will, eventually, extend WPA support to most other
equipment. About six weeks after WPA firmware becomes available for
a given device, the company should be able to ship the product with
built-in WPA.
SMC Networks will also build WPA in to all of its wireless Lan
products by the end of June.