Unlicensed radio spectrum in 900Mhz, 2.4GHz and 5.8GHz bands was allocated by the United State's FCC back in 1985. It wasn't until the late '90s that industry got together and agreed on standards that became 802.11b (2.4Ghz band) and 802.11a (5.8GHz band).

In 1999 six companies got together to form the Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance (WECA). The term "Wi-Fi" was created and the current Wi-Fi Alliance has over 200 members that help ensure technical compatibility across a growing range of products.

Today, Wi-Fi is prevalent in many areas: Office or Home wireless networks, downtown "HotSpots" for portable/mobile internet access, and increasingly in larger wide-area networks e.g. community and city- wide networks. Applications range from standard Internet access, through to Voice (VoIP) and Video use.

Early Wi-Fi networks had simple encryption schemes such as WEP which have proven to be easily broken into by hackers with freely available tools. Many examples exist on the Internet - this video clip shows how it can be done in 10 minutes.

The latest standards promoted by the Wi-Fi Alliance have names such as WPA2, based on the new 802.11i amendment and AES based on the 802.1x standard. WPA2 has both Personal and Enterprise versions are available. You can read more about Wi-Fi security here.

To facilitate larger Wi-Fi networks, especially where it becomes unwieldy to connect Access Points (APs) by cable, manufacturers developed ways to wirelessly connect the APs together. Networks ranging from simple extensions to wide-area systems could now be achieved without the need to cable APs.

An early standard known as WDS (Wireless Distribution System) was developed for 802.11b networks. When this software is incorporated into an AP, Wi-Fi coverage can be extended without having to cable the AP back to a switch. WDS and other methods like it, often use a single radio on each AP to achieve the meshing, sometimes done on the same 2.4GHz channels as the portable client devices use to access the AP.

For medium to large networks, e.g campuses to city- wide networks, more advanced meshing architectures are required. APs with multiple radios using multiple channels give the best throughput performance as each mesh link can be full-time dedicated to backhaul purposes, while keeping other radios dedicated to client access. These advanced networks have advantages such as:

• Distributed Control
• Self-Configuration
• Self-Healing
• Redundnacy
• Scalability
• Simplified Installation

Strix Systems’ Access/One Network family of products deliver high performance wireless mesh network systems. Access/One Networks employ a multi-radio, multi-channel, and multi-RF mesh networking architecture that delivers highly scalable and extremely flexible networking systems. Capable of delivering high throughput and low latency over large scale mesh networks, the Access/One Network is ideal for voice, video, and data networking applications.

Strix Access/One Networks are deployed in many different environments and used for many different applications around the world. From carpeted indoor enterprise networks to large scale outdoor metropolitan area networks, Strix Systems has a product that meets and exceeds the requirements for these varying environments and application scenarios.

Large-scale networks benefit from having capabilities to support a number of different user groups, each with their own SSID and VLAN. Strix mesh networks support up to 16 SSID's with various different security schemes ranging from WEP(!) and WPA2 through to AES encryption. This enables city-wide deployments to cater for a number of user groups, each with their own private network. Public access can be offered from a number of ISPs too. Read the following to see what some overseas cities and communities are up to:

• Tempe Arizona: USA's first city-wide deployment
• IOWA: Three cities
• Five Apartments - Texas: Indoor Outdoor mesh
• International Speedway Corporation
• Protection Partners: Video Security
• Mesh Networks via Satellite

There's a revolution in the air, at least in some cities: more and more of them are moving to set up systems that would let all their residents access the Internet without wires and for very little money or even for free.

Most of us think of wireless Internet access as a luxury but cities say it's not and municipal wireless could change a lot for consumers. For example, cheap easy internet access could become the preferred way for consumers to make phone calls so they would bypass traditional telephone companies.

What happens to the telephone companies? And what about the companies pushing to be in the middle of this new consumer access? Google is proposing to provide free, wireless high-speed access in San Francisco. Is Google growing too big and too powerful? Hear about the revolution in wireless Internet access in America's cities. Click here and select either Windows or Real Player streams of the On Point radio interview that discusses these issues. It makes for interesting listening.

All the best from the InTELCOM team.