Moto incorporates Symbol WLAN technology into portfolio

Motorola is expanding its MOTOWi4 family of access products to include indoor WLAN technology, incorporating the recently acquired Symbol Technologies enterprise wireless portfolio into the business unit.

MOTOWi4 encompasses a broad range of technologies from its WiMAX and Canopy fixed broadband wireless solutions to broadband over power lines and mesh Wi-Fi. By linking the enterprise WLAN solution with its traditional outdoor access solutions, Motorola is creating a seamless network offering that can scale from a metro network to a single room, said Sujai Hajela, vice president and general manager of enterprise WLAN for Motorola.

As part of the reconfiguration, Motorola has souped up Symbol’s RFS7000 wireless switch, adding new security and presence features that will allow companies to track assets, people and network access across a massive corporate campus, Hajela said. The system can locate individual cars in the parking lot or use both WLAN an RFID detection to track a guest through a corporate headquarters, allowing or denying access to network resources depending on his or her location.

Motorola has also taken assets from another acquisition, Wireless Valley, to build a RF planning solution that integrates with Motorola’s spectrum management, Hajela said. As the airwaves in the enterprise become more crowded with WLAN, RFID and eventually new IEEE 802.11n technologies, planning of the network will become more crucial as will the capabilities of the applications on the network, Hajela said.