WLAN vendor Xirrus announced its first outdoor Wi-Fi products, a hardened access point and two sealed enclosures that can encase its indoor product line.

The rapid adoption of 802.11n has become a significant milestone in the history of wireless LANs. The MIMO-based technologies used in most 802.11n systems provide enough throughput, reliability, and rate vs. range performance to effectively remove the last major barriers to the broad adoption of WLANs in the enterprise.

Wireless LAN devices (access points and clients) supporting (up to) three spatial streams are often denoted as "3x3" devices, referring to the minimal number of transmitters and receivers required to make this particular configuration of MIMO work. But there is so much variability in terminology here that a standard nomenclature is required.

A question we're hearing with increasing frequency concerns the upcoming 802.11ac standard, which promises to do to 802.11n what .11n did to .11g. While the IEEE 802.11ac standard likely won't be completely finished before the end of 2013, and, while the Wi-Fi Alliance similarly has issued no interoperability criteria for 802.11ac, consumer-grade products claiming compliance with the aforementioned 802.11ac standard could be on store shelves as soon as the middle of 2012.

A few weeks ago here in the above ground portions of the Gibbs Universal Industries Secret Underground Bunker we got hooked on the British series "Downton Abbey".

Although vendor-written, this contributed piece does not advocate a position that is particular to the author's employer and has been edited and approved by Network World editors.

Although vendor-written, this contributed piece does not advocate a position that is particular to the author's employer and has been edited and approved by Network World editors.

Global shipments of Wi-Fi ICs have experienced an extraordinary growth in recent years, due to the increasing demands for wireless-enabled devices and enterprise level applications.

The recent formal approval of the IEEE 802.11n wireless standard marks not the end but the start of a wave of Wi-Fi innovation. In the next three to five years, the Wi-Fi experience will be very different from today.

Sometime on Friday, at the sprawling Hyatt Regency hotel in New Brunswick, N.J., an IEEE group called the Standards Board is expected to approve the 802.11n wireless LAN standard.

In honor of the 802.11n WiFi standard getting close to arriving after wandering through the desert for 40 years, let's look at wireless. Our focus today is on helping you WiFi better, even if it means doing less WiFi.

As IT evolves to support everything from virtualized desktops to mobile and social networking, new advances promise to change the way the business side of the house gets the job done. Here's a look at some of IT departments' game-changing technologies and how they affect the everyday worker.