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Wireless LAN Equipment Shipments Up
MrBounce writes "Worldwide shipments of wireless local-area network equipment increased by 120 percent in 2002 from a year ago. So who are the current market leaders in this field?"
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Boy, given that Apple was shipping wireless on their computers back in 1999, it is interesting to see that they don't seem to be represented here. It could be due to a small market share I suppose, but Apple has paid the price for leadership again and again by innovating and then everyone else jumping on board.
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it's funny - there are two approaches to Wireless:
:)
1) try to create wired-equivalent security, with WEP, et. al.
This usually results in "security" which can be cracked by a persistent teenager in a car in under about 20 minutes.
2) leave everything "open" and make sure that all security is host/application based. Treat the network as "untrusted"
Personally, this is where I stand: I think that it works better, and people don't get any unrealistic impressions about the security of their connections.
So I run a WISP which is built upon the latter model, in Washington DC. If someone wardrives and snoops some internet for an hour, fine! pleas don't attack the network itself, but feel free to surf the web
-David Barak
Need Geek Rock? Try The Franchise!
This is something I've been wondering ... I just don't know the answer. At home, I enabled WEP and disabled SSID-broadcast. I don't have much faith in WEP, but it's better than nothing, right? Anyway, with SSID-broadcast off, is my WLAN essentially invisible? Or could somebody "see" the packets still, and know something was there?
Mike.
Mmmm......sacrelicious.
If you don't know what a Mesh Network is, you should read up on it. There are some very cool applications.
You can fly in a helicopter at 300 mph+ and sustain an Internet Connection.
City governments are also using this technology to deploy cameras around their cities.
Any kind of technology is always scary when government gets ahold of it. However, I still have some questions about it's security though.
http://www.meshnetworks.com
Let's just that wireless requires Big Company infrastructure. Make the Wireless big enough and perhaps it will be decentralized. Make it encrypted and everyone can/will use it.
Make it so that no one wireless is the chokepoint and you will have redundancy that backbones can only dream about. And All this for FREE!
Sigs are dangerous coy things
Cisco is 28% of wireless lan revenue since they own Linsys now =) I find it interesting what this says about the overall market, Cisco/Aironet which is the large enterprise leader slipped behind Linksys in revenue even though the typical Cisco/Aironet product costs ~8X what the typical Linksys product does, so small companies and consumers must be outbuying enterprises by around 8X =)
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Educated consumers do, provided that there isn't a huge difference in cost. If I can pick up Linksys for $99 or pay $299 for a "better" product, I'm going to lean toward the cheaper option. Although, it depends on what I'm looking for.
BTW, since you're concerned about choosing the quality WLAN, do you know of a good comparative review of wireless products? I may be in the market for some more wireless stuff myself.
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
It's funny - I built my WISP out of Linksys Wireless-G products largely because of cost, and I've been fairly satisfied. HOWEVER: there are two fundamental features missing:
1) nothing acts like a repeater (grrrr)
2) I want an AP/Bridge combo, where it can do both at the same time! (I guess that's really a lot like the first request, but dammit, it's needed!)
Of course, just after I purchased everything, they came out with a WET54...
-David Barak
Need Geek Rock? Try The Franchise!