VENDOR TRIO TARGETS Wi-Fi VOICE RELEASE

Proxim Corp. said that the mobile/Wi-Fi architecture and device it's developing with Motorola and Avaya probably will be commercially available by the end of the year.

“The three companies together intend to provide more information about the system a bit later this summer,” said Ben Gibson, vice president of marketing at Proxim, when asked for an update on the 18-month-old partnership.

A dual-mode device being made by Motorola will be targeted at 802.11a networks in enterprises, according to published reports. That standard is being leveraged because of its capability to provide more voice channels. Though 802.11b is far more dominant in commercial deployments, 802.11a offers 54 Mb/s bandwidth to 802.11b's 11 Mb/s and can potentially support as many as 25 voice calls per access point, compared with six calls per 802.11b access point.

Proxim acknowledged what had been a widely rumored schedule for availability just days after mobile phone giant Nokia confirmed it also is developing a mobile/Wi-Fi gear. Proxim, Motorola and Avaya announced their partnership to much fanfare in January 2003. Since then, most of the partnership's public activity has centered around Proxim's unveiling earlier this year of the WLAN access point system that will serve as part of the architecture. The system also includes a gateway co-developed by Proxim and Avaya.

From a device point of view, mobile/Wi-Fi integration traditionally has been considered expensive and difficult to confront because Wi-Fi consumes device power much more rapidly than mobile handsets. The vendor partners have figured out how to develop an architecture and device, but further technical details have not yet been revealed.