The 802.11 mix-and-match dilemma

By Joanie Wexler
Network World Wireless in the Enterprise Newsletter, 02/04/02

In addition to the basic 802.11 functionality specified by IEEE standards, most wireless vendors attempt to design value-added features into their products. This is, of course, a practice not exclusive to the wireless sector; it is a common practice throughout the networking industry. Typically, baseline standards are specified for basic interoperability and on top of that vendors find creative ways to distinguish themselves.

In the 802.11b environment, wireless LANs (WLAN) face security challenges above and beyond those of wired networks. Security architectures, then, are often an important product differentiation among WLAN vendors. But if you mix and match different access points and client interfaces, you are presented with the typical networking conundrum of choosing between " common-denominator " networking capabilities (basic interoperability) or sticking exclusively with one supplier to gain, universally, the vendor-specific features of utmost importance to you.

This issue is magnified in the mobile world, and spills over to other purchase choices. For example, let's say you have a favorite notebook PC or handheld provider. And you've evaluated the various WLAN vendors and have chosen one, perhaps on the basis of their outstanding approach to security.

But let's say your WLAN vendor of choice is not the one that has partnered with your favorite notebook vendor as a supplier of 802.11b network interface cards (NIC). If you go with the notebook vendor with one vendor's NIC and purchase access points from your WLAN vendor of choice, you're back to the old common denominator.

The point is that not all WLAN vendors make NICs for all notebooks. Some of the client NICs are integrated into a special form factor chosen or developed by the notebook maker - e.g., it could be a mini-PCI slot (Dell, for example), Compaq's MultiPort interface, or Handspring's SpringBoard interface. WLAN NICs developed specifically for these interfaces only work with these interfaces.

The good news is that you usually have the option of using a PC Card (aka PCMCIA) slot for your NIC. It is true that these cards and antennae protrude from the laptop and are thus quite vulnerable to being lost and broken. On the other hand, depending on how long you expect your employees to keep their notebooks, going the PC Card route might " tide you over " until 802.11I - the IEEE work to enrich and standardize more robust security standards - gets universally embedded into WLANs. Gartner thinks this will begin to happen, with firmware upgrades to existing products, late this year.