Make Your 802.11 Components a Little More Active

Adding intelligence to your wireless broadband development process

is as easy as visiting your electronics distributor

By Wally York, vice president of marketing

Pioneer-Standard Electronics, Inc., Industrial Electronics Division

Electronic Products & Technology magazine

Technology driving collaboration

Active components are becoming more capable of adding intelligence to the data and signals that pass through them as they consistently grow faster and denser. In fact, we appear to be rapidly closing on the physical limits of today’s technology, which is driving the search for exciting new technologies and materials that will enable greater performance in smaller geometries.

The same trends that are driving that search are also driving more active component business to electronics distributors. Active components are becoming more complex and adapting to market changes more quickly. Engineers and supply chain management professionals from both suppliers and distributors can work together to expand awareness of the benefits of using particular technologies to develop new applications and solutions.

In fact, suppliers and distributors increasingly must work together to effectively deliver the support required to help manufacturers optimize the use of the more complex and fast-changing components. With expertise and capabilities that complement each other, suppliers and distributors can deliver unparalleled service to their customers, regardless of size or location. Nowhere is this collaboration more evident than in the telecommunications industry, particularly as wireless communications emerge in the market.

Wireless will revolutionize broadband …

High speed wireless technology is the enabling technology that will revolutionize broadband:

· Wireless broadband bypasses the last mile and enables wireless metro, neighborhood, wide, and local area networks.

· Wireless broadband leapfrogs the expensive retrofitting of existing residential, commercial, and industrial space to enable high-speed wireless local area networks.

The wireless local area network (WLAN) market is booming. According to IDC, worldwide sales of equipment increased 80 percent last year, to more than $1 billion, and will approach $3.2 billion by the end of 2005. WLANs were first embraced by such markets as health care, inventory control, and warehousing because companies could justify high equipment and integration costs in exchange for a clear return on investment.

In the past year, however, WLANs expanded into mainstream businesses, educational institutions, and homes as prices for PC cards finally dropped below the $100 price barrier. Small and home office access points that integrate router functions and firewalls, and used to cost $1,500, are now available at local electronics stores for as little as $200. In August, Forbes magazine declared a WiFi (wireless fidelity, or 802.11b) card for your laptop one of the only eight gadgets you’ll need to survive on campus.

According to Stewart Alsop of New Enterprise Associates, in his 15 October 2001 Fortune column titled “Awake From a Wireless Dream,” ‘Wireless networking is a phenomenon for one simple reason. When you don't have to plug in anywhere, you are truly mobile. You can carry your computer from one place to another and still be connected to a network. Yes, that's great at home or at work. But it's even greater anywhere else you might carry a computer: airports, hotels, other people's offices, even a coffee shop or restaurant.’

... if we let it.

Unfortunately, wireless broadband networks are not yet the dream Alsop envisions. As Andrew Bovingdon, director of product marketing at Tarantella, Inc., notes in Computerworld on 30 August 2001, ‘Another problem for mobile workers is the complexity and uncertainty of the network ... Mobile workers need access from a wide range of devices, each with unique characteristics. They need access from a wide range of locations, anywhere from the office or their home to a remote office in another country. They need access over a wide range of network conditions that change as the person moves about.’

Mixing and matching the wide range of devices Bovingdon discusses presents compatibility challenges that various standards bodies and advocates are working to resolve. While these standards evolve toward easy compatibility, electronics distributors can support the wireless broadband revolution by enabling the development of the wireless telecommunications infrastructure.

Bringing it all together

Each manufacturer of WLAN components is building parts of the wireless infrastructure. Electronics distributors such as Pioneer-Standard bring it all together. The technology is complicated – building the components as well as the networks takes experience and sophistication. Fortunately, WLAN manufacturers and developers can rely on their distributors as agnostic experts in the technology and standards of wireless broadband.

For example, Pioneer-Standard’s communications segment is a team of specialists dedicated to supporting the development of the wired and wireless infrastructure. Serving specific accounts in the six major communications markets, Pioneer-Standard’s communications segment is composed of engineers and procurement professionals that are prepared at the earliest stages of planning to address to unique demands of developers incorporating active components into their 802.11 equipment.

Also, Pioneer-Standard’s MyPioneer.com award-winning Web site plays a critical educational role. Located at http://mypioneer.com/wireless/main.asp?JobFrom=IED-1222, the Emerging Technology Resource Center provides visitors with the most current information regarding various wireless technologies, including a useful comparison of 802.11, Bluetooth, and IrDA standards. In addition to highlighting suppliers' offerings, the site is a convenient location to get news and information regarding wireless technology.

Finally, Pioneer-Standard is the exclusive marketer of Aprisa’s CircuitNet Discovery tool, which includes a catalogue of more than 2 million active components. CircuitNet empowers the design engineer by providing the ability to conduct component discovery and analysis on more than 80 technological and business attributes per device. Regardless of supplier or distributor, Aprisa’s CircuitNet is the industry’s most comprehensive and usable database, and now includes reference designs for various applications that engineers can review and into which they can drill down for deeper information.

The next big thing

On 19 February 2001, Benchmark Capital’s J. William Gurley wrote in CNET News.com that, ‘Wi-Fi has all the makings of a disruptive and explosive technology: huge growth, a strong value proposition, multiple and expanding uses, industry standardization, and global standardization. There are flaws, but none is insurmountable, and none is nearly large enough to be anything more than a speed bump with respect to the billions of dollars of research and development already pointed into this space.’

With deep and constantly evolving experience, and detailed information from every active component supplier, electronics distributors bring it all together for the wireless broadband developers who are building the infrastructure for the next major disruptive technology.