The broad discussion of BYOD this year got me to thinking: are wireless gateways going to be seeing big gains as a strategic solution for BYOD? Or will gateway functionality be rolled up into other systems?
Gateways are not a hot topic in wireless today. I’m surprised by this; there are a large number of functions in these products, which range from hotspot-in-a-box systems and those aimed at Wi-Fi, to really big systems for cellular operators that have been kicking around for more than a decade. I’ve written on this topic in the past, and a conversation yesterday with gateway leader Nomadix reminded me that it’s time for an update – especially since BYOD, a potential gateway function, is such a hot topic this year.
There’s no universal definition of gateway, other than the use of this term as a broadly-accepted description of functionality at Layer 4. But, in general, gateway products can include all of the following (and more): user-to-user isolation and other security functions like authentication, access control/NAC, loyalty-program integration and branding, quality-of-experience/fairness/bandwidth management, billing, and ease-of-use enhancement, among others. The last item on the list is particularly important with respect to BYOD, as device adaptation is a key requirement here.
Nomadix specializes in Wi-Fi products today, but it’s easy to see how their range of capabilities could be applied to any (particularly wireless) communications system. They can address fairly small to very large carrier-class installations, and are independent of any particular Wi-Fi system. The conversation of yesterday led to a thought: will the Wi-Fi or network-equipment vendors incorporate more gateway functions going forward? Does the gateway get subsumed into controllers or management systems? With the advent of guest access and its successor, BYOD, many systems vendors are moving, ever so slowly, in this direction. The big challenge, though, is the same as that for unified networking – building a single management console that can literally do it all. I continue to favor a standards-based, XML-based, open-systems approach here, on the theory that no firm can really build it all, but such usually runs counter to the strategies of industry players and perhaps common sense. I am reminded, though, that Sun Microsystems and its logical successor, the open-source movement, created great value across the board by bucking the proprietary status quo. But this can indeed be argued both ways – customers need solutions, not toolkits, at least until those toolkits are mature.
In the meantime, Nomadix has an extensive set of APIs, so traditional software development techniques can be applied to building whatever solution is required. They are also following the Hotspot 2.0 initiative, which I have high hopes will bring cellular and Wi-Fi closer together. One way or the other, though, gateways in some form will play an ever-larger role in the success of public-access networks of all forms. And I can easily see further strategic divergence here along with that greater opportunity, and thus a future hot topic in the making.
