Wifi Revolution

If you ever feel like globs of data traffic are keeping you from experiencing the mighty power of 802.11n WiFi (News - Alert), Cisco’s latest announcement is sure to brighten your spirits. The networking giant today unveiled new add-on service that’s designed to reduce interference by competing airwaves, so your data can go about its merry way.  

Specifically, the latest of Cisco’s (News - Alert) Borderless Mobility “solutions” now includes the new Cisco Aironet 3500 Series Access Points with CleanAir technology. This, in turn, helps companies deliver “a seamless mobility experience by providing anywhere, anytime access to information,” according to a company press release.

In a recent Cisco survey of more than 600 U.S. companies, 78 percent considered all or part of their wireless network to be mission-critical to their business operations. Yet, the same group identified wireless interference as one of the top causes of wireless performance issues.

By cleaning the air, Cisco sets out to solve the problem of wireless interference by combining a patented CleanAir Application-Specific Integrated Circuit in the access point with system-level intelligence to detect, classify, locate and mitigate the impact of wireless interference.

CleanAir accurately detects, classifies and locates more than 20 unique interference sources including cordless phones, wireless video cameras, microwave ovens and Bluetooth devices while simultaneously serving client traffic.

One of the key highlights is an Air Quality Index for full of assessment of the severity of interference affecting any given access point or specific location.

“People are very used to doing everything wirelessly,” David Stiff, manager, product management, for Cisco's Wireless Networking and Business Unit, told TMCnet. But when you’re dealing with WiFi spectrum, as you add more devices like iPads and iPhones, stuff overlaps on the networks and performance goes down, he explained.

With the CleanAir product, “it’s almost like a magnifying glass that gives us visibility into interference.”