"Right now, every Wi-Fi phone in existence uses 11b, not the faster 11g"

The N80 and N95 support both 11g and 11b. I know the battery life sucks on the N80 (not got an N95, so can't comment), but 11g phones are out there, and popular.

The E61 DOES support 11g, as does every E-series Nokia, from what I can find on Google.

you might like to have a look at the HTC/SPV/XDA suite of smartphones... pretty much all of the current range are 11g

time for a new researcher methinks!!! :p

"Suffice it to say, here, that it makes planning your office network easier, because it means the net looks like a single access point on a single channel, with the same service ID - and so "roaming" from one to the next is far simpler, without massive work done planning the layout. Normal wireless networks have to avoid overlap; the virtual cell effectively eliminates that problem."

My wireless network here in the office (3 - 11g access points) act and are viewed as a single network access point, and we most certainly have overlap. Who would not plan for some overlap of the signals? The last thing I need is for the CEO to walk into an area of the office with his laptop and lose his signal. The hell to be had if there isn't a strong signal covering ever inch of this office is huge.

I agree with an earlier poster. Time to get a new researcher.

That'd be all very well and good except that 802.11b runs at 11Mbits/sec and 802.11g runs at 54 Mbits/sec. Those are signalling rates, and there is protocol (and delay) overhead on top of that, but certainly not 60% overhead.

802.11n has some modifications to improve the effective efficiency, so it's better still than that.

802.11n's increased coding gain also means you get better range at the same power, and can therefore reduce the power you're using.

Better still, Nokia phones can reduce their TX power, and yes, you do get better standby time if you do this- more than three days, if you can get away with the minimum setting. You *will* need to set this manually, though.

I wouldn't say it's time to dump wired ethernet- at least, not until we can get gigabit wireless- but things certainly aren't as dire as this article wants to make out.

My two Meru controllers and 50 AP's are arriving on Friday - Can't wait!!!!!!!!!

I have to agree with others that much of Mr Kewney's article is a mix of the incomprehensible and the inaccurate (perhaps it was written by the other Guy?).

However on the 'can't overlap' issue he is generally correct.

Firstly with any vendor's system you can of course overlap the coverage of up to 3 11g access points because you have 3 channels that effectively do not interfere with one another. The problem comes when you have an office that needs more than 3 APs. You then have to reuse channels and in a 3 dimensional environment it is impossible to achieve the blanket coverage needed for telephony without coverage overlap (and hence interference) between APs on the same channel. Meru's single channel technology provides an effective solution to this problem.

Secondly, standard wireless access points are NOT viewed as a single access point. They may broadcast the same SSID, but they will be uniquely identfied by MAC address and clients will associate with a specific access point. This means that they need to roam when they move from access point to access point and unfortunately the roaming mechanisms in 802.11 are client initiated and pretty bad. By using a single channel and a common virtual MAC address, Meru shifts control of roaming to the infrastructure and hence delivers a much better user experience.