Wireless networks add an extra level of security complexity when compared to wired networks. Whereas wired networks send electrical signals or pulses of light through cable, wireless radio signals propagate through the air and are naturally easier to intercept. Network engineers and other technology experts have closely scrutinized wireless network security because of this open-air nature of wireless communications. The increasing use wireless has exposed the vulnerabilities of WLANs and has, therefore, accelerated the pace of security technology advances in wireless equipment.

Typically, a discussion in wireless security refers to two areas: user authentication, and traffic encryption. User authentication prevents unauthorized users “utilize” network resources or, in other words, reduce the network resources available to authorized users. . Traffic encryption technology prevents unauthorized users to monitor the content of the information going through the wireless communication channels as these links may pass through exterior walls and into nearby places not meant to be part of the WLAN.

The following are some basic steps that are recommended to be taken to secure a wireless enterprise network:
- Turn on encryption. WPA2 encryption should be used if possible. WPA encryption is the next best alternative, and WEP is better than nothing. WPA encryption can provide resistance to man-in-the-middle attacks and rogue AP attacks.
- Change the default password needed to access a wireless device setting default passwords are set by the manufacturer and are known by Hackers.
- Change the default SSID, network Hackers know the default names of the various brands of equipment and continued use of a default name suggests that the network has not been secured.
- Disable file and print sharing if it is not needed.
- Access points should be arranged to provide radio coverage only to the desired service area if possible.
- Divide the wired and wireless portions of the network into different segments, with a firewall in between

These are some of the most recommended security steps in enterprise wireless networks and the best strategy when dealing with security is to always combine a number of security measures and not all wireless systems offer to same “Security Suite”.

For example, there are several security features supported by Altai’s A8 Supper Antenna WiFi Cellular Base Station that will help with when implementing a security strategy, like MAC ID filtering, Static IP addressing and SSID suppression.

Theoretically, hiding the SSID will prevent unauthorized users from finding your network. MAC address filtering will prevent casual users from connecting to your network because the Altai system maintains a list of MAC addresses that are allowed access. By disabling DHCP and assigning static IP addresses to all wireless users, network administrators can minimize the possibility of a hacker obtaining a valid IP address.

Public networks differ from enterprise networks in that the above recommended security steps are not practical to apply to general public users. In order to improve security to wireless users, a more advanced authentication and encryption methodology needs to be used. There are many features provided by the Altai WiFi cellular network system to counteract wireless network intrusions in public networks.

Authentication and Encryption for a public WiFi network, using 802.1x and back-end RADIUS server via a captive portal web page can provide a good level of authentication security, preventing hackers from utilizing the network resources, but this does not prevent hackers from monitoring any unencrypted traffic. AES (WPA2) and TKIP (WPA) can provide encryption to traffic. However, network operators should be aware of the compatibility issues regarding old client devices and the difficulties of setup for novice users. The WPA-PSK encryption method is inappropriate for use in a public network because the pre-shared key needs to be shared amongst all users and therefore each user cannot be uniquely identified.
Multiple SSID and Isolation in the case of a public network where the operator wants to serve different types of users such as free access and paid-services, the Altai WiFi cellular system supports broadcasting multiple SSIDs, allowing the creation of Virtual Access Points (VAP) partitioning a single physical access point into several logical access points, each of which can have a different set of security and network settings. SSID Client Isolation prohibits wireless clients in the same subnet from communicating directly with each other and thereby bypassing the firewall, thus network security will be further increased.
Physical Security. Some access points will revert back to factory default settings (no security at all) when someone pushes the reset button on the access point. This makes the access point a fragile entry point for crackers to extend their reach into the network. Provide adequate physical security for the access point hardware, especially for those deployments in hotspots like coffee shops or restaurant.

Overall, conventional wisdom holds that wireless networks are now “secure enough” to use in the vast majority of homes, and many businesses. Security features like 128-bit WEP and WPA can scramble or “encrypt” network traffic so that communication content can not easily be deciphered by snoopers. Likewise, wireless routers and access points incorporate access control features such as MAC address filtering that deny network requests from unwanted clients.

Risks from hackers are sure to remain with us for any foreseeable future. The challenge for IT personnel will be to keep one step ahead of these security risks and Altai products will help with it.

The ABP Team

With this platform, SMB customers will receive a tightly integrated, standards-based solution, and the delivery of state of the art capabilities and features in both switch and IP phones.

Snom’s SIP-based family of IP phones is an excellent choice for small, medium and large enterprises in a range of business contexts.

The snom phones provide access to the full feature set of Digium/Switchvox Asterisk IP PBX, including BLF Busy Line Fields/Extension Monitoring, speed dials, and also many phone based features like calllists, return call, blocked caller list, phone based call records and in the case of the snom 370 and snom 820 an Open VPN for remote workers resolving networking and security issues other phones can present for remote workers.

Digium’s partnership with select premium phone manufacturers like snom technology, gives businesses access to a non proprietary and open IP PBX platform where customers can pick the IP phone that best matches their requirements and create their ideal IP Telephony solution.

The early devices use a technology called mesh, which connects hundreds or even thousand of wireless access points to create hops of radio signals throughout a community. Now WiFi technology uses cellular network architecture with less quantity of access points, minimizing the latency in order to support real time applications.

But while WiFi technology has proved largely successful in providing cheap wireless Internet service, WiMax, which was mainly created to provide “last-mile” broadband connection to homes and businesses.

Pros and Cons
WiMax has a much greater range than WiFi, although interpretations of this range vary. While engineers have stated that WiMax could have a range of up to 30 miles, field tests have resulted in a range radius of between four and eight miles. Still, this represents a range far greater than the WiFi radius.

WiMax also has some benefits over WiFi in terms of connection quality. When multiple users are connected to a WiFi access point, they are effectively in constant battle for connection, and users can experience varying levels of broadband width. WiMax technology, however, secures each user with a constant allotment of broadband access. Built into the WiMax technology is an algorithm that establishes a limit to the number of users per WiMax access point.

Moreover, the 2.5GHz spectrum assigned to mobile WiMax is licensed, so there aren’t the interference issues that the 2.4Ghz spectrum has for WiFi.

But WiMax has some disadvantages as well. A major consideration when comparing the Wi-Fi and WiMAX technologies is regulation. Wi-Fi technology is unlicensed, though regulated in the maximum allowable power. The WiMAX technology requires a license, which defines the frequency band, channel bandwidth, power limit, and geographic area. Licensed bands (like 2.3GHz, 2.5GHz and 3.5GHz) are usually very costly, and require large upfront investment.

WiMax service tends to cost more than WiFi service — 50 percent to 100 percent more — which makes it hard to use. Wi-Fi is a mature technology that is already embedded in many devices. Today, you can hardly find a new laptop that does not have a Wi-Fi client in it.

Mobile WiMAX is an emerging technology. Its client devices are planed to be produced in masses (802.16e), but will never reach the numbers of Wi-Fi. And since the Fixed WiMAX standard has been replaced by the Mobile one, the WiMax CPE price is high ($200 to $400) and it will stay in this range in the near future.

The proliferation of Wi-Fi devices makes the cost of a Wi-Fi base station much lower than that of the WiMax base station. In addition, since Mobile WiMAX is designed to compete against 3G, and because its mobility support it will include some very costly components that will increase significantly the cost of a WiMax based network. Wi-Fi base stations, on the other hand, do not require additional costly components, making the cost of Wi-Fi based network much more attractive compared to a WiMAX based network.

The allowed maximum transmission power in licensed bands is normally higher than in unlicensed bands. This implies that wider range and higher spectral efficiency can be achieved in principle. Yet, in practice the limiting factor in most cases is the client device, where the maximum power is limited by battery drain consideration. As a result, the client device transmit power is just as limited in the licensed band as in the unlicensed band.

Bandwidth allocation is often smaller in licensed band (3.5MHz to 7MHz) compared to unlicensed band (normally 20MHz). So, the maximum achievable throughput rates of licensed band are usually significantly lower than those unlicensed bands.

Standards in 2008
The ongoing debate is about Wimax 802.16e versus Broadband Wifi 802.11N. The differences are in the two attributes speed and range. The similarities are that they both use MIMO (Multiple IN Multiple Out), which is basically 40 Mhz as oppose to 802.11G 20 Mhz.

With regards to Speed, Broadband Wifi 802.11N is actually faster than Wimax 802.16e. For the Wimax Standard 802.16e, they are talking about 70 Mbps. So Wimax is actually slower than Broadband Wifi.
With regards to the Range of Broadband Wifi 802.11N its about 1000 to 1500 mts. in open spaces and less when it has to go through walls. That’s of course with the standard antennas that come with the router. They are sure to offer bigger antennas that will enhance the range soon.

On the other hand Wimax 802.16e is ready today with a range of 40 Miles. It is just an issue of having to either subscribe someone else’s antenna or buy your own.

Which one is the best?
As in many fields, there is no one technology that universally provides the best fit. It all depends on the specific application. If the application is providing broadband access for fixed or mobile users, then WiMAX is the more suitable technology since it was specifically designed for this type of application.

However, if the application is providing broadband access for fixed and nomadic users in limited zones, then Wi-Fi has similar performances as WiMAX. If the application is providing backhaul for security and surveillance cameras, then Wi-Fi is definitely the more suitable technology since in most cases only the unlicensed spectrum is available for this task. But in some applications WiMAX and Wi-Fi together can be successfully combined, to benefit from the advantages each technology has to offer.

As a matter of fact the more knowledgeable the users, the clearer the understanding that the two standards fulfill different needs and the more we see them both being used together in their correct applications. WiMAX mainly for broadband fixed wireless connectivity while Wi-Fi is used inside of buildings, and outdoors in campus environments or heavily transited areas like parks, city squares, tourist areas, airports, train, light rail, bus stations, truck stops, marinas, malls, industrial plants, and many more.

The ABP TEAM

There are multiple applications using WiFi; e.g., handheld devices, laptops, printers, digital video recorders, cable set top boxes, game consoles, audio equipment and other consumer electronics devices. Soon, digital cameras will let you wirelessly send photos to your PC where they are automatically saved to a folder that you pre-defined and in the same way, wireless technology could be used to connect TVs to various devices like set top boxes, DVDs and DRVs; all in an effort to eliminate cords and add flexibility to the home network.

If we talk about all the possibilities for deploying WiFi networks we probably never would finish but here are a few examples of well known WiFi applications;

- Restaurants (like Panera Bread, Dairy Queen , Starbucks, etc.) with multiple franchise locations offer Free WiFi
- Airports and VIP waiting rooms
- National and Regional Hotel, Motel, and Resort chains
- RV Parks and Campgrounds
- Vacation Rental Properties with Free WiFi for Renters
- Commuter rail lines like the Framingham/Worcester Line
- Public Parks. The City of Stamford, in conjunction with the Ferguson Library. Stamford’s Public Library provided its users who hold a public library card access to a wireless Internet Service Network (WiFi) in Columbus Park.
- University Campuses. Ninety percent of college students in the United States say WiFi access is as essential to education as classrooms and computers and nearly three in five say they would not go to a college that doesn’t have free WiFi
- Commercial Airlines. Delta is to become Only Major U.S. Airline to offer Broadband WiFi access across its’ entire Domestic Mainline Fleet
- Buses. Mountain Metropolitan Transit in Colorado Springs first offered WiFi on buses in 2004 and now WiFi access is available in many USA cities such as San Francisco, Reno, Austin and Seattle.
- Marine Terminals. One of the most critical junctures in modern container shipping occurs on land at the marine terminal where 30 ton-cargo containers must be unloaded, moved and stacked in the open, and re-shipped over land. These marine terminals, characterized by as large open areas filled with expensive logistics equipment, are beginning to use WiFi enabled communications and tracking devices to provide more real-time, remote instructions for machine operators which expedites container management logistics and provides better container tracking for security reasons.
- Warehouses using WiFi handheld devices for inventory management.
- WiFi spots for vehicles. Avis has announced they will offer WiFi for a reasonable price per day for high speed Internet service in its cars
- Hospitals. A Wireless service is offered free of charge to patients at Winchester Hospital in Winchester, Mass. They installed WiFi at Winchester’s acute care hospital in patient rooms, waiting rooms and other common areas. Additionally, physicians have access to a private network.

With these few examples, it is easy to see that by 2012 more than 1 billion WiFi enable devices will be shipped and this estimate may actually be low.

So how can you benefit from this trend?  You can sell ABP’s Altai Technology Super Wi-Fi Solutions the worlds leading long-range Wi-Fi  base station for resellers and service providers in the America.

ABP Team

Like in past years IT Expo West was a great event for us to meet our West coast customers as well as to meet many new reseller partners. This year once again we beat a record in new quality leads.

One of the most exciting new product lines for ABP is Mobotix our IP based Intelligent Surevillance camera system.  Each Mobotix IP Camera is also a SIP phone and therefore our cameras in case of an alarm can place calls by themselves to notify with pre-recorded messages as well as connect to the location to mnitor sound and or establish a two way audio conference call through the camera.

As always we like to present some really new products. This year we are presenting Altai Technologies Super Wi-Fi products. Altai specializes in long-range Wi-Fi solutions and has the best far reaching 802.11 b/g antenna system on the market. Altai antennas enable laptops and Wi-Fi Phones to connect over 500m  from the base station.

The Altai anntenas contain many design advances and unique software enabling Altai Wi-Fi base stations to work in noisy and busy environments where competitors products fail and reach record distance ranges.

We see a renaissance in Wi-Fi. For years the Wi-Fi market was stagnating waiting for WiMax but now it has become clear that WiMax technology is a fixed wireless play. Wi-Fi with more than 500 Million mobile devices and growing, is the clear winner for short and medium range access.

Portable Devices like the iPhone, Mobile Windows and sub-notebooks need Wi-Fi create a huge demand for connectivity and create an attractive market for service providers.

See the ABP Team at this years IT Expo West.

As other guests we had CamriVox with Flexor a flexible CTI solution that enables snom phones to communicate with Outlook, Salesforce.com and Netsuite.com.

Last but not least ClearOne our long-time IP Conference Room phone partners have presented a unit for Response Point.

Thanks to all ABP partners that joined us at the show!

The ABP Team

All MOBOTIX cameras reduce system costs because high resolution doesn’t just produce reliable evidence, it also saves money.

These cost benefits are a result of the Technical Advantages that distinguish MOBOTIX cameras.

After looking a bit deeper into the Mobotix product-line it rapidly becomes apparent that this is a unique product that offers an incredible ROI for both the user and integrator. Mobotix offers the Integrator more options and flexibility than any other product in the market today. The flexible design of the Mobotix platform offers its partners the capability to create more robust, unique and innovative solutions than any other IP camera in the market that we know.

The ABP Team

The professional control center with search functions was tried and tested at the Kaiserslautern World Cup Soccer Stadium and includes an integrated Layout Editor to help you compile building floor plans fast. Event-based searches with time tracking for multiple cameras, image editing and lens distortion correction are also available, along with the integration of analog and digital PTZ cameras.

Remote Control And Remote Image Retrieval Is Standard

Anytime, from anywhere in the world, you can adjust the MOBOTIX camera settings, view live and recorded images, simultaneously via the network. In case of an event, the control center staff can retrieve the recorded images immediately, without interrupting recording or having to send someone to the location. The web browser can also be used to adjust any of the camera settings as well as to retrieve live video or recorded images. New or improved software functions are easily uploaded into the camera via the network.

The CMOS image sensors used in MOBOTIX cameras do not need a mechanical iris, but use electronic shutter speeds of up to 1/8000 of a second. This has the advantage that the camera is resistant to backlight and has no mechanically moving components, reducing maintenance to a minimum. Similarly, MOBOTIX Day/Night cameras are the only cameras in the world without moving parts. MOBOTIX Day/Night cameras use two independent CMOS sensors and two lenses with purely electronic switching, one B/W sensor for the highest possible light sensitivity in the dark and one color sensor for brilliant true color images during the day.

The absence of mechanically moving parts minimizes maintenance, expands the usable temperature range, improves overall reliability of the total system and operating costs. That’s what MOBOTIX is famous for - “Made in Germany”.

Robust and reliable

The shockproof fiberglass-reinforced synthetic together with the integrated SecureFlex mount not only protect the camera itself from damage and vandalism, but also the cabling. With IP65 certification, MOBOTIX cameras work under almost all conditions from -30° to +60°C (-22° to +140°F). The high-quality, synthetic material used in MOBOTIX camera housings originates from the automobile industry and is extremely resistant against yellowing caused by UV rays. Special vandalism-proof dome camera models are available featuring a 3mm dome and a stainless steel cover.

The ABP Team