Carol Ellison

The business profile for the wireless sector, it seems, has caught up with the rest of the industry—or down, as the case may be. An influx of inexpensive 802.11 components from Taiwan is making it harder and harder to earn a decent margin on hardware. Not only have prices on 802.11b equipment fallen to near […]

Last week the IEEE gave its official stamp of approval to 802.11i, the long-awaited security specification that replaces Wired Equivalent Privacy, the original—and basically insecure—802.11 security scheme. In its place, were getting the robust, elegant and globally applauded Advanced Encryption Standard. That comes as good news in a month in which wireless security was haunted […]

Its tempting to look at the patent infringement suit that Wi-LAN slapped against Cisco Systems last week, wring our hands and lament, “Here we go again.” On the face of it, this one has the makings of high drama—a classic David and Goliath battle, as a small, Canadian firm takes on the heavyweight champion of […]

It had to happen: A computer virus has spread to cell phone networks. Kaspersky Labs issued an advisory Thursday on a network worm called Cabir that affects phones that use the Symbian operating system. Cabir uses the Bluetooth wireless peer protocol to propagate, copying itself to other Bluetooth devices as far as 30 feet away, […]

Interlink Networks rolled out Monday a software-based wireless security product that aims to bring high-end enterprise security to small businesses in a setup thats as easy to configure as security codes in a garage door opener. At least thats the goal of Mike Klein, president and CEO of Interlink, who believes that small businesses have […]

We seem to need pager alerts these days to keep up with competition in the Wi-Fi hot-spot space. Yesterday, just a week after Wayport announced a retail partnering program that challenged T-Mobile USAs dominance among retail hot spots, T-Mobile countered with an aggressive move into Wayports bread-and-butter niche, the travel and hospitality sector. T-Mobile lit […]

On a slow news day, you can always go “war driving.” Thats what Mike Outmesguine did in an 800-mile drive down the California coastline in an Associated Press story this week. About 40 percent of the networks he detected from the laptop on the passenger seat of his Toyota 4Runner were not secured. The news […]

Before Wayport had much time to glory in its April win of a bid to unwire McDonalds restaurants, one of its key competitors went belly-up. Immediately, it seemed, pundits and analysts everywhere were asking whether the retail model for Wi-Fi hot spots—the one that suggests wireless connectivity will attract new customers to a venue—had any […]

Cometa Networks announcement that it is suspending operations has its former clients—and the providers who court their business—scrambling to pick up the service. /zimages/6/28571.gifClick here to read more about Cometas decision to pull the plug on Wi-Fi. Peter Hoedemaker, vice president of retail at Tullys Coffee, said Tullys is actively looking for alternatives. “Everybody is […]

Strapped for investment capital, Wi-Fi provider Cometa Networks announced on Wednesday that it plans to suspend operations after less than 18 months in business. AT&T, IBM, Intel and two venture capital firms launched the collaborative venture in December 2002 to aggregate and wholesale wireless hot spot services. In March of 2003, Cometa gained prominence as […]

CHICAGO—Research In Motion Ltd. development partners rolled out a series of new wireless applications for the BlackBerry platform at the RIM Wireless Enterprise Symposium here this week. PalmSource Inc. announced a distribution agreement with RIM that makes BlackBerry Connect wireless e-mail and data services available to licensees of the Palm operating system. In December, the […]

CHICAGO—Research In Motion (RIM) announced BlackBerry Enterprise Server Version 4.0, featuring enhanced security and over-the-air provisioning, today at the companys third annual Wireless Enterprise Symposium here. The new version, which the company demonstrated at the symposium but will not ship until later this year, simplifies deployment and application development for mobile devices in the enterprise […]