Wi-Fi antennas extend reach

Wi-Fi got several boosts this month that promise to expand coverage areas offered by wireless providers and to widen corporate networks.

This week, T-Mobile teamed with iPass and MCI banded with Boingo, each in an effort to increase the number of access points available to their users.

Earlier this month, Bandspeed, Motia, and Vivato showcased “smart” antennas designed to expand the range of corporate WLANs, reduce the number of necessary access points, and improve signal quality.

A smart antenna searches an area for Wi-Fi signals and blends several weak signals into a strong signal without being prompted by the user.

Most antennas on Wi-Fi switches and routers are “dumb,” having no added intelligence beyond their capability of detecting electronic signals by locking on to the strongest signal emanating from a client device.

Despite their recent surge into the Wi-Fi spotlight, smart antennas are not a new technology. Cell phone towers have used this technique for several years to help maintain a cell phone connection while the caller drives down the highway or walks across a city square.

But recent enhancements to silicon chips have increased their ability to control these antennas. That advancement and the cost reductions that come along with improved chip technology have primed smart antennas for the next generation of Wi-Fi devices.

“Enterprises are looking for tools to make Wi-Fi easier to deploy, easier to manage, and easier to secure,” said Chris Kozup, research director at Meta Group. “Smart antennas are one of those, but they’re not at the forefront of the list in providing that capability.”

Although an enterprise may have several staff members comfortable with internetworking technologies, those workers might not be comfortable managing RF (radio frequency) devices. Companies may find it easier to buy several cheap access points from an established vendor such as Cisco Systems to guarantee coverage, Kozup said.

Smart-antenna vendors point out that the total cost of managing a disparate network of access points may exceed the acquisition cost of more sophisticated technology. But, as Kozup added, “The best technology doesn’t always win.”

American University in Washington recently purchased two outdoor switches from Vivato to cover some external spots that couldn’t be reached by the university’s extensive indoor WLAN setup, said Carl Whitman, the university’s executive director of e-operations.

American is trying to get students to move to cell phones and VoIP (voice over IP) technology so that the university can stop maintaining a traditional phone network, Whitman said. The university has wired about 40 buildings on campus for both 802.11b and GSM/GPRS networks. The original plan had been to cover outside areas with spillover from the inside networks, but the university needed to add coverage for those areas to ensure students and faculty could have a seamless connection, Whitman said.