Start-up joins WLAN fray with device

Last week marked the debut of yet another wireless LAN start-up, this one with a compact product that it says will help companies do away with more wires than competing gear.

Strix Systems' Access/One is a stackable set of modules, each roughly the size of an average paperback book. One of the modules has a standard WLAN radio that connects to notebooks and other wireless clients, just like any access point. But the only wire needed by each stack is a power cable to the base unit.

The stacks rely on an 802.11a radio module and Strix's mesh software to coordinate their interactions, and route wireless packets through the mesh. One or two of the stacks use an Ethernet cable to connect to the wired network.

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Last week marked the debut of yet another wireless LAN start-up, this one with a compact product that it says will help companies do away with more wires than competing gear.

Strix Systems' Access/One is a stackable set of modules, each roughly the size of an average paperback book. One of the modules has a standard WLAN radio that connects to notebooks and other wireless clients, just like any access point. But the only wire needed by each stack is a power cable to the base unit.

The stacks rely on an 802.11a radio module and Strix's mesh software to coordinate their interactions, and route wireless packets through the mesh. One or two of the stacks use an Ethernet cable to connect to the wired network.

A network industry irony is that the term WLAN refers only to the connection between a notebook or PDA and a nearby access point. The access point itself typically needs one or two wires: a power plug and an Ethernet cable to a wiring closet switch. (If the device supports power-over-Ethernet, then only the network cable is needed.)

Installing a cable drop for each access point is time-consuming and costly, ranging from $200 to $1,500, according to Bob Jordan, vice president of marketing at Strix, who bases the figures on information from systems integrators. Jordan is one of the few top Strix executives who did not migrate from telecom software vendor Vertel.

The Strix mesh software is intended to create a cluster of WLAN access points that are aware of each other. Plugging a stack of modules into an outlet powers up each module. The Network Connect Module (the 802.11a radio) automatically identifies itself to the corresponding module in surrounding stacks. If a stack fails, or is unavailable, other stacks can route around it. The software is designed so that each stack continually seeks the best path for its wireless traffic.

One beta site, with four of the stacks, is Pacific Coast Cabling, an 18-year-old voice and data cabling company in Chatsworth, Calif. The stacks cover most of about a 10,000-square-foot office space.

The cabling company's IT group previously had banned WLANs because of security concerns, says Allen Horwitz, vice president of the network division. But the IT group was intrigued by Strix, which supports the Advanced Encryption System in its products and made its gear work with the cabling company's RADIUS servers.

Another powerful attraction is that once installed, the Access/One stacks continually monitor radio frequencies and can pick up new transmissions. During the initial site survey at Pacific Coast Cabling, a Strix technician discovered an open access point at a neighboring company in the office complex. "[Rogue or open access points] can be detected at once and dealt with," Horwitz says.

There are four modules in the basic stack, each 3.5 by 7 by 1 inch. A full stack is about as high as a typical PDA is long.

At the bottom, there is the Base Module with the power cord and the electronics to power the rest of the stack components.