Proxim Details Wireless LAN Switching System

Stepping up its competition with Cisco Systems, Proxim started shipping new enterprise-class wireless access points and released preliminary details Monday of it ORiNOCO wireless LAN switching system.

The company said in a statement that the switching system will focus on support for voice-over-WLAN (VoWLAN). It will have features that prevent session re-starts, which can interfere or cut off VoIP communications. Those features will include no-delay roaming, load balancing and bandwidth management, strong security and advanced quality of service (QoS).

"Although wireless switching is increasingly being viewed as the optimal architecture for wireless networking, solutions that have reached the market to date have clearly lacked support for seamless voice communications," Kevin Duffy, Proxim's senior vice president of product management and R&D said in a statement.

Separately, the company announced its new line of enterprise-class access points. It said its ORiNOCO AP-4000 Access Point will support 802.11a/b/g and will support all types of Wi-Fi clients. It also will support WPA security as well as SNMPv3 and HTTPS. The APs are available now for $899.

Proxim said in its statement that its wireless switch-ready access points with their emphasis on VoWLAN will be based on the new AP-4000 units will ship in the second quarter. The company said that the APs will both have centralized intelligence and distributed intelligence.Cisco, which market research studies have consistently shown has a commanding market share lead in the enterprise WLAN market, has yet to release wireless switching equipment. Proxim said it also would ship a variety of other WLAN switching products in 2004 that it will develop in conjunction with other companies.