| Mark Hopkins solves Vo-Fi challenge with smart antennas The tony InterContinental Mark Hopkins hotel in San Francisco is ringing in the new year with internal voice-over-Wi-Fi (Vo-Fi) connections that are as clear as a bell. MIMO, antennas and streams - oh, my! 802.11n's intimidating nomenclature contains such mysterious terms as MIMO, spatial streams and spatial multiplexing, which can quickly freeze a network manager's brain. What do these specs really mean in the context of ... Slideshow: Good options for wireless packet analysis abound If you need a tool to help capture and analyze your wireless traffic, you're not left wanting for choice. Both WLAN management suites as well as adhoc tools garnered perfect or near perfect scores in our tests, showing a very high level of maturity in this market. Formidable tools for capturing and analyzing WLAN traffic abound The value of capturing and analyzing network traffic is well-established. After all, the generic "sniffer" has been a fixture of networking since the days of "datascopes" on RS-232 connections. But wireless links introduce a number of complicating elements to this process - Wi-Fi protocols are unique at Layer 2, and traffic over the air isn't serialized, as is the case with wire. Simultaneous competing traffic is often the norm. How we tested the WLAN tools All products were installed on our trusty Dell 710m equipped with an Intel 2915ABG wireless adapter, said adapter being used with only one of the tools tested. The objective was to install and use these products in a manner identical to how they would be applied in an end-user enterprise, and compare them functionally in a number of dimensions. Other analyzers working in the wireless realm We also looked at Ufasoft Sniffer 4.126, but found it supports no contemporary WLAN adapters. This was surprising, as the program was last updated in May of 2008, but no documentation or even a help file is available. E-mails to the support contact went unanswered. WildPackets OmniPeek scores a perfect 5.0 WildPackets' OmniPeek Enterprise delivers Wi-Fi packet capture and analysis features as part of its full-featured network assurance package. It's important to mention here that OmniPeek is not specific to wireless - it's a full-function network analysis tool for wired segments as well. We must also note that there are less-expensive versions than the Enterprise one we tested so we're only making claims about this one. TamoSoft's CommView offers ease of use Tamosoft flagship product is CommView, and CommView for Wi-Fi is a special edition that provides the necessary drivers that allow a variety of off-the-shelf Wi-Fi cards to be used for capture and analysis tasks. CACE Technologies' point products hit the mark CACE is one of the most visible firms in network analysis today, offering a number of products for both wired and wireless applications. AirPcap is consequently one of the best-known tools for WLAN capture and analysis. It's based on the very popular, open-source Wireshark (formerly Ethereal) protocol analyzer. AirPcap adds the wireless-specific parts, and includes a Wi-Fi receiver as part of the package - no other adapter is required, so getting up and running is quick and easy: install the driver (as is always good practice, don't use the included CD; download the latest version), insert the USB adapter, install Wireshark, and that's it. AirDefense Mobile could improve packet capture AirDefense, one of the leading Wi-Fi security firms, is now part of Motorola. We tested their AirDefense Mobile 4.3 kit, which includes a dual-band a/b/g adapter card and several high-gain antennas. It's also possible to use a fairly restrictive set of other adapters as well, the restriction again being due to the need for custom drivers provided by Motorola. Installation was easy, although a reboot is required after the install. This product hasn't been updated in a while, and it doesn't support 802.11n at this time. Aruba's RFprotect Mobile offers a broad assurance suite Formerly part of the Network Chemistry product line acquired by Aruba, RFprotect Mobile is an omnibus WLAN assurance suite with a wide variety of functions. With respect to packet capture and analysis, however, the suite serves primarily as a source from which to get the custom drivers required to turn a set of otherwise ordinary Wi-Fi cards into sensors and (for our purposes here) packet capture vehicles. AirMagnet: A tool for every Wi-Fi occasion AirMagnet has been a fixture in the Wi-Fi assurance space since the company shipped its first Pocket-PC-based product almost a decade ago. AirMagnet offers a comprehensive set of tools for almost every WLAN venue, from handheld to enterprise class. For this test, we looked only at the company's WiFi Analyzer 8.0 (formerly Laptop Analyzer) product. Three reasons why Obama's BlackBerry is a national security threat In a nut shell, the BlackBerry service is too public to be used. Let's be rational here, how would you feel if you knew the president used a public copy of WindowsXP on all his PCs, or if he used a public copy of Internet Explorer and Outlook? Managing mobile devices Managing devices may be deciding which phones you can/can't support from your favorite management application, says Microsoft Subnet blogger Kerrie Meyler. Belkin president apologizes for paying users to post positive reviews of Belkin products Belkin president Mark Reynoso has apologized for paying users to post positive reviews of Belkin products. January giveaways from Cisco Subnet and Microsoft Subnet
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