The Where, When and Why of Wi-Fi

Just because Wi-Fi has liberated the Internet from the desktop once and for all doesn't make it any more commercially viable. If anything, the freedom from physical and geographic constraints implicit in Wi-Fi's promise is hindering its acceptance in enterprise settings, where corporate employers want to keep tabs on their workers' activities and whereabouts most — if not all — of the time.

Boston-based start-up Newbury Networks is working to bridge that gap, in effect trying to expand Wi-Fi's enterprise appeal by limiting its scope. Earlier this year, the company launched LocaleManager and LocaleServer, two of the first-ever software solutions for managing and deploying location-enabled networks (LENs) and applications across 802.11-standard wireless LANs. “Location-enabled networks break all areas and quadrants of a space into sub-networks,” said Newbury President and CEO Michael Maggio, explaining that from there the software administers content and network provisioning, location tracking and monitoring, and traffic logging and analysis. “It's next-generation Wi-Fi layered on top of the traditional network.”

Newbury's software locates and triangulates wireless network users, transmitting data and services based on the user's credentials, physical location or other criteria. Maggio said this ability to determine and control how and where networks are used — and who's using them — will be pivotal in proving Wi-Fi's security and validity to corporate doubters.

“It's a natural evolution,” Maggio said. “We're seeing Wi-Fi adoption coming down the tracks like a train, but what do we do with it? And look at the enterprise — why give someone a mobile device when you can't figure out where it is? We can now provide location information current to where they are. You want to control this thing based on location.”

Newbury Networks was founded in March 2001. Maggio, a veteran of tech companies large (GTE Labs) and small (Segue Software), came to the firm a short time later, after a stint as president and CEO of now-defunct wireless data software platform provider NetMorf. “That's where I became intrigued by the concept of mobile data — specifically, giving it to a person where it's important and when it's important,” Maggio said.

And that's Newbury's argument: nowhere is it mandated that Wi-Fi networks remain open to anyone, anywhere, anytime. For potential corporate clients, that's a huge selling point. “We're going to validate that a particular user connection is the correct connection for the network,” Maggio said. “That's the piece that's still missing: You don't control where access is coming from. What Newbury adds is location, and we make it another factor you've got to authenticate against.”

But securing enterprise networks against the threat of hackers and other dangers is only a part of it — Maggio said LEN technology creates new revenue-generating opportunities as it protects existing ones. He cited the example of creating virtual retail storefronts in airports, where a particular terminal gate might offer passengers waiting to board their flight free — but limited — Wi-Fi access that could include sponsored links to e-commerce sites such as Amazon.com, tourist information and weather forecasts.

For now, Newbury is targeting vertical markets such as universities, museums and the hospitality industry. For example, the company is working with Dartmouth College, which boasts a completely unwired campus, to provide LEN technology to its Thayer School of Engineering. Maggio offers up another example in which a professor could turn off Internet access in a classroom based on a student's location, creating different sets of access privileges throughout a lecture hall — whatever environment the professor wishes to create, really.

That's one area where Newbury wants Wi-Fi's snowballing growth to remain unchecked: Maggio acknowledges that innovation doesn't end when the technology leaves the lab. “It's not unlike the Internet world,” he said. “Innovation is coming from a combination of grass-roots and corporate efforts.”

Newbury's customers are already figuring out new ways to maximize their investment. At the Royal Sonesta Hotel in Cambridge, Mass., guests are treated to an impressive collection of paintings, sculptures and other works of art positioned throughout the public areas of the hotel's first two floors. Printed informational handouts were once given to guests touring the galleries, but earlier this year the Royal Sonesta teamed with Newbury to create the Digital Art Catalog, making available iPaq wireless handhelds that deliver thumbnail images of the painting, its title, the artist's name and other background information — all tailored to the user's specific location.

“The problem until now was that there was no single application in the hotel environment to justify installing a wireless LAN. We kept asking, ‘What combination of applications will contribute to generate an ROI?’” said John Fairfield, the Royal Sonesta's senior systems manager. “Now we're looking to start piling on other hotel applications that Newbury will help us develop and complement.”

Fairfield next envisions for Royal Sonesta what he called a trouble-tracking ticket system. For example, a housekeeper could use a wireless device to report a toilet overflowing or a light out by transmitting the information to the office of the hotel's chief engineer. From there, the engineer could determine the locations of the hotel's maintenance technicians, dispatching the one closest to the trouble spot to remedy the situation. Other potential applications: digital imaging for security staff and wireless check-ins and checkouts.

Fairfield said guests' reaction to the Digital Art Catalog has been almost uniformly positive. “The only complaints we've had are from people who wish the thumbnail was larger,” he said.

That there is a larger version of the image available — specifically, the original painting hanging RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM — apparently hasn't dawned on everyone. But Newbury only promised to locate users — nobody ever said all of them would be smart.