Re: Fwd: bit OT -- Wifi technology

["Bradley, Stephen W. Mr." <bradlesw () MUOHIO EDU>]

If you are a Cisco shop already have you considered their micro cell sites?

I believe our networking group is researching that right now.

Steve

Sent from my iPad

Stephen Bradley
bradlesw () muohio edu

On Sep 2, 2010, at 6:09 PM, "Russell Fulton" <r.fulton () AUCKLAND AC NZ> wrote:

> Hi Folks
>
> this stuff has security implications but really is not primarily a security topic so please forgive me for taking 
> liberties with the list.
>
> Currently we are a cisco shop as far as our wireless infrastructure goes -- enterprise WPA2, EAP, PEAP,  
> authenticated via radius, but are now looking at alternatives.  
>
> One thing that we are aware of is the convergence of traditional wifi and cellphone technology.  It seems clear that 
> '4G' will support some form of (more or less ?) seamless marriage of the two.  This is vitally important for us 
> because 3G bandwidth is extremely expensive here -- to the point where potentially useful mobile applications are too 
> expensive for a large sector of our student population.  Added to this is the problem of different network providers 
> -- any deal struck with one provider will leave more than 50% of our users out in the cold.  Being able to leverage 
> our wireless network with most phones would be a big advantage.  Many people already use iPhones this way but is 
> currently not widespread enough to deliver essential services over.
>
> The other thing that we are aware of is that the Cisco gear performs well in some circumstances but sub optimally in 
> others.  We wonder if we can improve the over all performance of our wireless presence by buying AP from another 
> provider for some niche environments (e.g. lecture theatre and other relatively open spaces)
>
> And then then there is the security aspect of mixing technologies/vendors.  Are there things that we should look out 
> for?  In theory so long as we can authentication via one of radius, kerberos or AD we should be fine but is it as 
> simple as that?
>
> So we would very much like to hear any real world experiences or of any crystal ball gazing that others have done 
> that might help us decide where to go...
>
> Thanks, Russell