IEEE reinstates wireless working group
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The IEEE standards body reinstated the 802.20 working group, replacing the leaders and requiring members to reveal their affiliations.
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(InfoWorld) - The working group for the emerging IEEE 802.20 mobile broadband standard, which was suspended last year after a fight over members' real company affiliations, has changed its voting rules. In the IEEE 802.20 working group, each entity -- including vendors, university research groups, and other bodies -- will have one vote. Typically in IEEE networking standards groups, members vote as individuals regardless of whom they work for. The working group was suspended in June 2006 after allegations that Qualcomm was improperly trying to dominate the process and that its then-chairman, Jerry Upton, had identified himself as an independent consultant but was paid by Qualcomm. Upton has since disclosed his work as a consultant for Qualcomm. The latest move, made Tuesday during a meeting of several IEEE standards bodies in San Francisco, came amid continuing concerns about domination of the group, 802.20 Committee Chairman Paul Nikolich said in a written statement. The change will help deliver a standard in a timely way, he said. Worries about Qualcomm's influence over the standards process seem to have continued. At a meeting in Montreal in May, some members of the group expressed concern that the company had two votes on the working group's Editorial Group because both the chair and one member represented Qualcomm, according to the draft minutes of the meeting. The chair clarified that the chair was only to vote when needed to break a tie. IEEE 802.20 is intended as a multi-megabit mobile data and voice system. Some of the technology that has played a role in it was developed by Flarion Technologies, which Qualcomm acquired in 2005. With 3GÂ cellular networks now going after the 1MbpsÂ barrier, there is no shortage of potential rivals to IEEE 802.20. Another mobile broadband standard, IEEE 802.16e, is being adopted by many system vendors and service providers under the WiMax name. One advantage of 802.20, proponents have said, is that it can be used in faster moving vehicles than can WiMax. Sprint Nextel, having previously tested Flarion's system, last year chose WiMax for its nationwide 4G network for commercial launch that will be launched next year. The company said Thursday it plans to join with ClearWireÂ for broader coverage. Sprint Nextel chose WiMax because it already existed as a technology and a standard and was being embraced by a large number of equipment vendors, including Nokia, said Atish Gude, senior vice president of mobile broadband operations at Sprint.
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By Mike Rogoway, The Oregonian, Portland, Ore.  Sep. 20--State regulators cleared the way Tuesday for work to begin on  Portland's free, wireless Internet project.
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Intel Corporation has decided not to enable the wireless access-point function in its new Intel &quot;Grantsdale&quot; chip. A company spokesman confirmed that Intel has decided to phase
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Several sessions at the upcoming IEEE broadcast meeting in Washington look interesting.
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After a key IEEE Working Group board member was found to have been a paid consultant of Qualcomm, which has proposals pending before the Group, the IEEE decided yesterday to overhaul the Group's entire leadership structure. Intel and Motorola are apparently pleased.
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(InfoWorld) - A group of technology vendors has submitted new test results for a wireless device intended to operate in unused portions of the television spectrum afterÂ an identical device malfunctioned in U.S. Federal Communications Commission tests earlier this year. The new tests showed the wireless device correctly detected TV signals and stayed out of that part of the spectrum 100 percent of the time, according to a filing on behalf of Microsoft and Philips Electronics. Microsoft and Philips are part of the White Spaces Coalition, a group of tech vendors asking the FCC to allow wireless devices to operate in the so-called white spaces of the television spectrum. The coalition wants the white spaces opened up to give consumers more wireless broadband options. Television broadcasters have opposed the White Spaces Coalition, saying it's too likely that wireless devices will interfere with TV signals. On July 31, the FCC declined to license a wireless device built by the coalition, saying it interfered with TV signals. Microsoft later said the device was damaged and "operated at a severely degraded level." On Thursday, Microsoft and Philips submitted new tests to the FCC. In their new tests, the wireless device detected signals that are "far too weak for a television set to produce a broadcast television picture," wrote Ed Thomas, a tech advisor to the White Spaces Coalition and a former chief of the FCC's Office of Engineering and Technology. The FCC will likely do its own retest of the device. The White Spaces Coalition hopes the FCC can make a decision to approve the device by the end of the year, Thomas said. The group had originally hoped the FCC would make a decision by October, and members believe the FCC can still make a decision soon, he said. "We'd love to see the FCC do whatever they need to do to corroborate our data," Thomas said. "We hope we've moved the ball a long way to help them make a decision." This month,Â the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) and the Association for Maximum Service Television launched a campaign urging the FCC to reject white spaces devices. The wireless devices could cause "devastating interference" to digital TV sets, the two groups said. "While our friends at Intel, Google, and Microsoft may find system errors, computer glitches, and dropped calls tolerable, broadcasters do not," Alan Frank, NAB's chairman, said in a news release this month.
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InfoWorld - The Wi-Fi Alliance launched the action phase of its plan to get faster wireless networking products into the market on Monday, kicking off certification testing of gear based on a draft version of the IEEE 802.11n standard.
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This report analyzes the role that resellers and integrators play in distributing, selling, deploying, and managing enterprise 802.11 wireless LANs.
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InfoWorld - A group of technology vendors has submitted new test results for a wireless device intended to operate in unused portions of the television spectrum after&#160;an identical device malfunctioned in U.S. Federal Communications Commission tests earlier this year.
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802.11n wireless networking came closer to becoming an actual standard on Tuesday, as the IEEE said that 'Draft 2.0' received more than the required 75 percent supermajority required for the process to move forward.
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Wireless industry players arrive en masse in Barcelona to attend the four-day Mobile World Congress, which gets underway Monday. Mobile broadband is expected to be the hot topic at this year's wireless conference.
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Some U.S. lawmakers want wireless networks to be opened up to new devices and applications, and they questioned expensive early termination fees on wireless service contracts.
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The update uses stronger encryption and does a better job of letting only authorised users join wireless nets. The improvements have been made to re-assure businesses that wi-fi networks can be made safe enough to be really useful and widely deployed.
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Analysis Prospects bright in the Wi-Fi arena
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Despite the best efforts of the Wi-Fi industry to assure companies wireless networking is safe in the workplace, a new survey of executives finds security remains the leading barrier to WLAN adoption.
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A group of technology vendors has submitted new test results for a wireless device intended to operate in unused portions of the television spectrum, after an identical device malfunctioned in U.S. Federal Communications Commission tests earlier this year.