By Matt Hamblen At the Rowan-Salisbury School System in N.C., students and staff use some 7,000 iPads and other iOS devices on a Wi-Fi network stretching across 30 schools. Not surprisingly, networking demands can get tricky.

Ethernet has gained speed many times, and now it may be about to lose weight.

Wi-Fi use has exploded on college campuses, and none more than Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine.

The Metro Ethernet Forum has updated its Carrier Ethernet specification, hoping to standardize the use of Ethernet for global multicarrier services.

Republic Wireless on Tuesday launched a limited beta program of its $19-a-month hybrid wireless service using, to start, the LG Optimus smartphone running Android 2.3.

Well, much to my amusement I recently discovered that there's a new name for Internet users in my age group: We are now called "Silver Surfers" (with apparently no nod to Marvel and its superhero of the same name).

There comes a time in most businesses when circumstances dictate that one or more users work from home either full- or part-time. In other cases, it may simply be convenient for business owners and employees to be able to use company resources from home or (unfortunately) while on vacation.

When you combine this week's layoffs with other recent restructuring, Cisco, has actually eliminated 12,050 jobs from its workforce, a reduction of 16.5 per cent that includes the largest downsizing in the technology industry this year.

Home is where the network is: That's the mantra of networking vendors at the Consumer Electronics Show 2011 in Las Vegas this week.