vpnsite.net

Price :

Features

• Remote Access - Supports 25 concurrent tunnels and is tailored for the Small and Mid-Sized businesses.
• Provides browser based secure access to your corporate network; no client required on the users laptop for remote access.
• Uses SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) a protocol popular in the world of e-commerce.

Product Description

Cost-effective secure and easy to use, NETGEAR ProSafe SSL VPN Concentrator provides clientless, secure remote access for mobile and remote users. It offers small and mid-sized businesses three key benefits: it provides secure remote access to corporate resources using standard web browsers thereby eliminating organization’s administrative headache of distributing and managing VPN clients; supports up to 25 concurrent SSL VPN connections, at industry’s most cost effective price point and comes with an easy-to-use interface, using one of the strongest encryption methods to ensure privacy of data across the Internet.

Customer Reviews

Review date : 2008-09-18
Very easy to setup. Not a entrprise class vpn solution but works great for a small office.

Review date : 2007-07-12
Since they first came out, I have set up several of these for customers. This one happened to be for my office. Once set up, they are great. The biggest problem is the tech support people. Slow to respond, foreign accent, and bad attitudes. Figure on 4 to 6 hours between hold time and the time necessary to work through any issues with the tech support people. The documentation is useless. I have never been able to get some of the features to work such as remotely running Word or Excel. I might be able to figure it out if I had the time, but I really don’t.

They have also been somewhat unreliable. I suggest that you immediately register the product before installing it. Then when you do have to call tech support to set it up, it will be somewhat easier. When you register you are offered an extended service plan. BUY IT! If your device fails, you get overnight delivery of a replacement. It also provides access to better tech support, and you get tech support for several years instead of 90 days.

Review date : 2006-12-21
This is a good product and works as advertised - with one small flaw. If you’re an Apple Mac user, you’ll only be able to use it if you’re running a PowerPC Mac. Due to a compilation problem in the VPN client Java library by Netgear, the SSL VPN client will not run on an Intel based Mac (even through Rosetta).

If you’re planning to use this with an Intel Mac - wait for a firmware upgrade from Netgear otherwise you’ll just be staring at a useless blue box with a flashing green light!

The introduction of the VCR changed so much for the television viewer. Before the introduction of the VCR, you had to watch the show when it was broadcast by the network ? that was your only option. If you recorded your favorite show, you were able to watch it when you wanted to ? and as many times as you wanted to. All you needed was a blank video tape and a VCR. That has all changed with the DVR.

A DVR, or Digital Video Recorder, is technology that takes all the great features of a VCR and places it in the digital age. Instead of multiple tapes, you have a single hard drive. Instead of degrading tape quality issues, shows are now recorded digitally that can last forever. Instead of programming a VCR through a complicated interface of tiny buttons on a remote control, you can program your DVR through a simple point and click interface, possibly even from your home computer.

In addition to the ability to watch your shows whenever you want to, there is another benefit to the DVR that most people only mention quietly ? the ability to quickly forward through your commercials. With everything being digital, a 30 second skip can be done with the click of a button. Imagine getting back 10 minutes of your life back for every hour of television your watch!

DVRs come in many shapes and sizes. There are set-top boxes that go right on your television set. They don?t require any other products to work. Some brand names of these options include Tivo and ReplayTV. Many satellite companies (and digital cable companies) such as Dish Network and Direct TV have options as well. Microsoft Windows Media Center is an option for Windows users. There are also options for the Mac and/or Linux user.

Once you have a DVR record your shows, you can watch them whenever you want. Some systems even let you transfer the content to a DVD or your laptop.

The Digital Video Recorder (DVR) changes everything for the television viewer. I hope you can join the revolution.

About The Author

Copyright AKDVR.com

Becky Jacobs has been a fan of the DVR since she realized it would let her watch Seinfeld whenever she wanted to. Her site, http://www.AKDVR.com, is quickly becoming a hub for all things DVR.

Price : $9.96

Product Description

Virtual private networks (VPNs) based on the Internet instead of the traditional leased lines offer organizations of all sizes the promise of a low-cost, secure electronic network. However, using the Internet to carry sensitive information can present serious privacy and security problems. By explaining how VPNs actually work, networking expert Jon Snader shows software engineers and network administrators how to use tunneling, authentication, and encryption to create safe, effective VPNs for any environment. Using an example-driven approach, VPNs Illustrated explores how tunnels and VPNs function by observing their behavior on the wire. By learning to read and interpret various network traces, such as those produced by tcpdump, readers will be able to better understand and troubleshoot VPN and network behavior.Specific topics covered include: *Block and stream symmetric ciphers, such as AES and RC4; and asymmetric ciphers, such as RSA and EIGamal *Message authentication codes, including HMACs *Tunneling technologies based on gtunnel *SSL protocol for building network-to-network VPNs *SSH protocols as drop-in replacements for telnet, ftp, and the BSD r-commands *Lightweight VPNs, including VTun, CIPE, tinc, and OpenVPN *IPsec, including its Authentication Header (AH) protocol, Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP), and IKE (the key management protocol) Packed with details, the text can be used as a handbook describing the functions of the protocols and the message formats that they use. Source code is available for download, and an appendix covers publicly available software that can be used to build tunnels and analyze traffic flow. VPNs Illustrated gives you the knowledge of tunneling and VPN technology you need to understand existing VPN implementations and successfully create your own.

Customer Reviews

Review date : 2006-08-17
VPNs Illustrated is a great book for those wishing to understand network traffic at the packet level. Author Jon C. Snader was inspired by the earlier TCP/IP Illustrated volumes, and tries to reproduce the Tcpdump-style material found in Stevens’ classics. The level of detail found in VPNs Illustrated easily outweighs any problems this book might suffer, so I recommend you read it for in-depth knowledge of VPN traffic.

The book is divided into three parts. Of these, I found Part I ("Background") to be of questionable value. The introduction (ch 1) should not have been a chapter, and ch 2 ("TCP/IP Overview") should be replaced by a reference to existing volumes on TCP/IP. The crypto overview (ch 3) could also be replaced by a reference to other books, although as a non-crypto guy I found it a helpful refresher. The last chapter in part 1 finally gets to more subject-specific information, covering PPP, IP-in-IP, PPPoE, GRE, PPTP, L2TP, and MPLS tunnels. I really liked reading the author’s criticisms of certain protocols like PPTP and L2TP. He should have included Tcpdump traces of MPLS, since the other protocols featured packet data.

Part II included chapters on VPNs (ch 5), SSL (ch 6), SSH (ch 7), and "lightweight" VPNs (ch like VTun, CIPE, Tinc, and OpenVPN. Some of this material is very deep and probably unnecessary for most readers. The author explains messages exchanged by almost all of these protocols, which is information I’ve not seen elsewhere. Some may consider these descriptions obscure, while others (probably researchers and developers) will appreciate the analysis.

Part III covers IPSec. Ch 9 ("IPSec") should be part of ch 10 ("IPSec Architecture"). The remaining sections thoroughly address IPSec (11: AH; 12: ESP; 13: IKE; 14: the future of IPSec). I think chapters 10-13 are the best IPSec material I’ve read. They made more sense than others I’ve seen, although the complexity of IKE made ch 14 difficult to follow.

Throughout VPNs Illustrated, the author is not shy about sharing criticisms of various protocols. This is extremely valuable. He also repeats sound advice on practices to avoid (like static preshared keys) or measures to consider (defeating replay attacks). Because he illustrates so many protocols, he compares and contrasts them to emphasize key points. He also frequently cites authoritative sources like Schneier and Ferguson.

To achieve a fifth star in a second edition, I would like to see the author incorporate my previous suggestions. I would love to see configuration files for all of his examples in the appendices. He can move existing examples out of the main text to improve readability. Every protocol should have a corresponding network trace analysis, and the traces should be posted on a Web site. I would also like to see a summary of his thoughts on what makes a great VPN protocol, and then his ratings for various implementations.

You won’t necessarily be able to implement the VPN software discussed in VPNs Illustrated by simply reading the text. You will gain a great understanding of how they work, or sometimes, don’t work!

Review date : 2005-12-02
I bought this book aiming to gain indepth understanding of VPN technology, but I was disappointed. The key chapter 4, for example, try to explain tunnel concept left and right, but it mixed the general encapsulation and tunnel, and the verbose wording didn’t make it any clear. Using tcpdump trace to explain some of the field is both a blessing and curse, depending on how you look at it - I think the book is sort of strong in specific details but weak in overall conceptual pictures - however most of those details have been better documented in the RFCs.

Another example - when talking about generic tunnel skeleton using FreeBSD as example (ch 4.8), where some code snippets are presented, I feel some background and detailed illustration of flow/drawing is necessary to clear up the concept and why it correlates prevoius sections, but none given.

It may sound a bit harsh: though the author try to emulate Rich Steven’s style and dedicate the book to him, but it is hard for me to say the end product can really live up to Steven’s standard.

Review date : 2005-11-23
NOTE: This book is not for everyone, if you have not invested at least 40 hours looking at network traffic, I would recommend you pass.

This book is zero fluff, it makes you want to spin up your scratch boxes and follow along. In fact I did just that, I have to switch to a new ISP that requires PPoE and I was always curious how that worked, the book gave me just enough of a clue to interpret what was passing in and out of my house.

The world has a new grandmaster of tcpdump and I have seem some pretty good ones over the years. Once I designed a T-shirt for a SANS conference with the hexadecimal output from a tcpdump; only we flipped it so it was running down the shirt and rendered in green, to resemble the matrix.

The packet was a DNS reply. In the additional records we said good things about SANS; after all, gotta market to eat. There was an error intentionally placed into the shirt and we designated a prize for the first attendee to find the error. A student walked by wearing the shirt and the "4500" in the hex field caught one of the instructor’s eye. She followed him around murmuring, it is sideways, UDP, DNS, a reply, there are additional records, wait a minute that pointer entry is wrong. We watched in amazement, when she was done and looked up, the entire SANS faculty bowed to her. Because a mal-formatted packet can kill a packet analyzer the world needs people like Judy and Jon.

This is not a beginner book and Jon expects you to catch the 4500 stuff pretty fast. However, if you have followed the discipline of tcpdump instead of some packet analysis tool that spells out everything this book can take you to the next level.

VPNs Illustrated is rich in diagrams, including packet headers and state diagrams, examples of network traffic, and cartoons that explain the architecture of the system, or network. It is amazingly well edited, my only nit is on page 93, line 1 spacing off by one character.

The book has a strong linux bias, if you are a Windows person, you will be able to follow along for about 60% of the book using Windump, but you will not be able to use the tools or source.

This is the perfect reference for the person that knows networking and wants to really invest in taking it to the next level.

Finally, the dedication to Rich Stevens was over the top and heartfelt appreciated. I will never forget the man who taught me how to read a packet.

Review date : 2005-11-16
Given the complexity of VPN I was hoping to find a book that could explain key technologies in a concise and an organized manner. "VPNs Illustrated" does contain a wealth of technical information, but it failed on both counts.

The book offers unnecessary detail when trying to explain key concepts. It is so disjointed that the author is reduced to constantly referring the reader to other chapters to find information that is needed to understand a specific topic area. For example, the critical topic of IPSec is first introduced during a discussion of L2TP.

The book contains factual errors such as a typo describing "OC4" when the author meant to say OC48.

Overall, I was very disappointed with this text. It needs to be proofread and completely reorganized.

After the 2005 London Bombings of the ?Tube? Britain allowed many Muslims to leave the city without checking ID. Figuring if the bad guys left, well they would not let them back in and thus that would be a good thing. Many decried this policy and stated;

?One of the things that Britain did during the time of the bombings in London wasn’t very bright of them. The bomber was able to use a public exit point to flee as the country had just introduced legislation that meant there would be no passport checks carried out on people leaving the country and that they are only necessary if one is entering.?

Others said there was wisdom in this plan as the bad elements would leave as to not be caught and they would not be able to easily return to cause any more damage. That is a good idea in some regards if you wish to get rid of malcontents, let them leave the country. Hopefully only the International Terrorists would leave and not the good Muslims who also were horrified by the attacks, some were even innocent bystanders who were injured or killed.

What probably should have been done is to electronically capture the images of everyone who was leaving. You see sometimes what goes out is as important as what comes in. So, they needed to at least take a digital picture of anyone leaving. Think on this in 2006.

Lance Winslow - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/

Price :

Features

• Remote Access - Supports 25 concurrent tunnels and is tailored for the Small and Mid-Sized businesses.
• Provides browser based secure access to your corporate network; no client required on the users laptop for remote access.
• Uses SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) a protocol popular in the world of e-commerce.

Product Description

Cost-effective secure and easy to use, NETGEAR ProSafe SSL VPN Concentrator provides clientless, secure remote access for mobile and remote users. It offers small and mid-sized businesses three key benefits: it provides secure remote access to corporate resources using standard web browsers thereby eliminating organization’s administrative headache of distributing and managing VPN clients; supports up to 25 concurrent SSL VPN connections, at industry’s most cost effective price point and comes with an easy-to-use interface, using one of the strongest encryption methods to ensure privacy of data across the Internet.

Customer Reviews

Review date : 2008-09-18
Very easy to setup. Not a entrprise class vpn solution but works great for a small office.

Review date : 2007-07-12
Since they first came out, I have set up several of these for customers. This one happened to be for my office. Once set up, they are great. The biggest problem is the tech support people. Slow to respond, foreign accent, and bad attitudes. Figure on 4 to 6 hours between hold time and the time necessary to work through any issues with the tech support people. The documentation is useless. I have never been able to get some of the features to work such as remotely running Word or Excel. I might be able to figure it out if I had the time, but I really don’t.

They have also been somewhat unreliable. I suggest that you immediately register the product before installing it. Then when you do have to call tech support to set it up, it will be somewhat easier. When you register you are offered an extended service plan. BUY IT! If your device fails, you get overnight delivery of a replacement. It also provides access to better tech support, and you get tech support for several years instead of 90 days.

Review date : 2006-12-21
This is a good product and works as advertised - with one small flaw. If you’re an Apple Mac user, you’ll only be able to use it if you’re running a PowerPC Mac. Due to a compilation problem in the VPN client Java library by Netgear, the SSL VPN client will not run on an Intel based Mac (even through Rosetta).

If you’re planning to use this with an Intel Mac - wait for a firmware upgrade from Netgear otherwise you’ll just be staring at a useless blue box with a flashing green light!

It?s amazing that with all the tips and support available one would still want to know how to dupe in WOW. There was one dupe that has been the biggest, or perhaps only one so far, which according to a rumor, seemed that you could accumulate huge quantities of gold as long certain criteria were met.

It appeared on a website where you had to pay to access the information on how to dupe in WOW. Those who had acquired the information decided to post it for free. It seemed that this dupe had been infiltrated sometime during the maintenance of the site. It stated that in order to duplicate your money you had to create another character instance and then, by traveling really quickly through a realm, you could be able to earn a rollback from your other character.

But let?s think about it for a second. If you had really found out how to dupe in WOW, and had realized an untraceable method, would you really tell everyone else on World of Warcraft about it? You would be able to advance so quickly and become rich. You could get anything you wanted and play at any level. To have this knowledge and resource at your fingertips would be wonderful, so why would you want to tell other players how to dupe in WOW?

How to dupe in WOW has had many people talking and even many more discussions opened, and there don?t seem to be many ways of duping, but many have found the same or similar methods, which some people will give you ? for a few dollars, of course. Others will post this information for free. There are ways how to dupe in WOW, mainly using gold, and they teach you to do this without farming, and will claim to give you lots of gold for doing basically nothing.

There is great speculation as to whether this method of showing you how to dupe in WOW, is a hoax or if it actually works. Some people have claimed that it has worked for them, but only in the mornings or just after the server has been down. Those that this method hasn?t worked for, have posted information and disappointed remarks, saying that this is a terrible hoax and want to be refunded. The video of World of Warcraft showing the exact details of duping, is also said to be doctored.

Personally, I think those who are epic players and strive to be the best, will not need, or should not want to know how to dupe in WOW. There are lots of other guides that will explain in detail all you need to know to play a fair and exciting game. I don?t really understand why someone would want to take the fun out the game. The whole point of playing and taking up the challenges is to come across difficulties and be victorious in the end. Isn?t it better to know that you got to a certain level or received that award because you played well and earned it? Perhaps it could be frustrating if you are stuck, but there are always tips and tricks from other players, and so many guidelines, which are interesting to learn and consequently apply. So, I guess you could go ahead and spend your money on a method that could be a hoax, or why not just try to play World of Warcraft the way it was meant to be played ? you could surprise yourself. Is knowing duping methods for World of Warcraft really worth all the fuss? Lots of players don?t think so, and believe that the only people being duped are you.

Gen Mason plays World of Warcraft almost everyday. Discover free World of Warcraft tactics and tricks at WOW Powerleveling

Price :

Features

• Remote Access - Supports 25 concurrent tunnels and is tailored for the Small and Mid-Sized businesses.
• Provides browser based secure access to your corporate network; no client required on the users laptop for remote access.
• Uses SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) a protocol popular in the world of e-commerce.

Product Description

Cost-effective secure and easy to use, NETGEAR ProSafe SSL VPN Concentrator provides clientless, secure remote access for mobile and remote users. It offers small and mid-sized businesses three key benefits: it provides secure remote access to corporate resources using standard web browsers thereby eliminating organization’s administrative headache of distributing and managing VPN clients; supports up to 25 concurrent SSL VPN connections, at industry’s most cost effective price point and comes with an easy-to-use interface, using one of the strongest encryption methods to ensure privacy of data across the Internet.

Customer Reviews

Review date : 2008-09-18
Very easy to setup. Not a entrprise class vpn solution but works great for a small office.

Review date : 2007-07-12
Since they first came out, I have set up several of these for customers. This one happened to be for my office. Once set up, they are great. The biggest problem is the tech support people. Slow to respond, foreign accent, and bad attitudes. Figure on 4 to 6 hours between hold time and the time necessary to work through any issues with the tech support people. The documentation is useless. I have never been able to get some of the features to work such as remotely running Word or Excel. I might be able to figure it out if I had the time, but I really don’t.

They have also been somewhat unreliable. I suggest that you immediately register the product before installing it. Then when you do have to call tech support to set it up, it will be somewhat easier. When you register you are offered an extended service plan. BUY IT! If your device fails, you get overnight delivery of a replacement. It also provides access to better tech support, and you get tech support for several years instead of 90 days.

Review date : 2006-12-21
This is a good product and works as advertised - with one small flaw. If you’re an Apple Mac user, you’ll only be able to use it if you’re running a PowerPC Mac. Due to a compilation problem in the VPN client Java library by Netgear, the SSL VPN client will not run on an Intel based Mac (even through Rosetta).

If you’re planning to use this with an Intel Mac - wait for a firmware upgrade from Netgear otherwise you’ll just be staring at a useless blue box with a flashing green light!

There are millions of Screensavers available on the Internet. Almost all of these can be downloaded and installed easily. These are usually categorized according to themes. Nature lovers can choose picturesque locations. Fish lovers can choose from different kinds of aquariums with multi-colored fish that are swishing through colored water. Those who really like adventure sports or aircraft can choose from a wide array of moving images and clips of death-defying stunts. Screensavers can also be slide shows that have various pictures of movie celebrities, sportspersons and politicians.

However, some precautions need to be taken before downloading Screensavers. The most important one is that Screensavers must be downloaded from trusted sites. It?s also always a good idea to scan Screensavers for viruses and other potentially dangerous elements, such as spyware and adware. If an anti-virus is already installed on the system, a right click enables a menu which provides for a ?scan with?? option. This option can be selected and left-clicked to check the selected download before double-clicking it and installing it.

Sometimes Screensavers are extremely graphic-intensive. This means that they contain so many graphics that they are huge files. Huge files take a lot of space on the computer when they run, and make the computer work so much harder and so much faster than normal that the computer freezes. Then the computer needs to be restarted and all the unsaved information on the computer — such as open files that were being worked on before the Screensaver was activated ? is lost.

Some Screensavers also make the hard drive of the computer crash, causing irretrievable data loss. Therefore, it is important for users to download Screensavers that are compatible with the configuration of their computers. This means that the speed of the processor in the computer, and the free space on it, should be sufficient for the Screensaver to be downloaded, installed and run.

Many users like to create their own Screensavers, often with the visuals and audio of their choice. Some software applications facilitate this. Out of these, some can be freely downloaded from the Internet. However, these should be downloaded only from trusted sites, and should be supported by the configuration of the user?s computer. Once downloaded, these should also be scanned for viruses and other common infections. When installed, these programs enable the user to combine images, video clips and audio clips to create a personalized Screensaver, sometimes even for circulation amongst friends and family.

Screensavers provides detailed information about screensavers, free screensavers, nature screensavers, animated screensavers and more. Screensavers is the sister site of Computer Projector Rentals.

Price : $29.00

Product Description

The most practical, comprehensive solution to defending your network perimeter. Get expert insight from the industry’s leading voices: Stephen Northcutt and the expertise of the SANS team. Inside Network Perimeter Security is a practical guide to designing, deploying, and maintaining network defenses. It discusses perimeter components such as firewalls, VPNs, routers, and intrusion detection systems, and explains how to integrate them into a unified whole to meet real-world business requirements. The book consolidates the experience of seventeen information security professionals working together as a team of writers and reviewers. This is an excellent reference for those interested in examining best practices of perimeter defense and in expanding their knowledge of network security. Because the book was developed in close coordination with the SANS Institute, it is also a valuable supplementary resource for those pursuing the GIAC Certified Firewall Analyst (GCFW) certification.

Customer Reviews

Review date : 2006-03-13
This is a great book for seasoned IT professionals that want to learn how to secure small and medium sized networks.

As others have said, if you want to read only one book, this is the one. The authors did a great job of describing concepts and relevant low level details and tools.

I enjoyed reading most of it, but I skimmed parts that described processes that seasoned engineers have applied countless times.

Highly recommended!

Review date : 2005-09-10
Very, very good.
All the most important subjects of perimeter security, remote access, resources separation are addressed.
TCP protocol details are clearly part of the explanation, therefore the more you know of it the better it is.
Useful links and vendor specific technology references are also included, like Microsoft, Cisco and so on.
Excellent.

Review date : 2005-01-26
Stephen Northcutt, and the various contributing authors, have created a masterful and well rounded guide of the various considerations that go into securing the network perimeter. As a student of Information Technology this book has been instrumental in my education and has earned a permanent place on my bookshelf (when it is not in my hands directly).

Review date : 2005-01-24
Stephen Northcutt has done a great job! this is the most comphrensive book on the subject. I particularly found the part on access lists very helpful. Niloufer Tamboly, CISSP

Review date : 2004-03-02
Fairly decent overview of perimeter security. If your a security professional you may learn a thing or two, if your a network administrator and your idea of security is a firewall then this book is meant for you. Its a fairly easy read, but some of the examples of the commands to enter in configuring routers and hosts could be eliminated. I felt the author was just taking up space with these examples. (not a big deal but I’m taking a star away on principal) I also felt the author could have gone into a little be more detail in the VPN chapter, especially when dealing with encryption, PKI, and authenication which I felt was glossed over. (again not a big deal, but when you call yourself the definitive guide, be more definitive and save the ‘commands’ for the user guides")

So you can have VoWLAN on any internet accessible device, including a laptop, PDA or a cell phone. A cell phone that supports VoWLAN can be called a hybrid or a Wi-Fi phone. VoWLAN and 3G have similarities, but VoWLAN uses a wireless internet network (typically 802.11) rather than a cell phone network.

Why is VoWLAN good?

Wi-Fi-enabled cell phones bring together cellular and landline phone systems and allows consumers to take advantage of the best each has to offer. For instance, you could start a call on your office using a Wi-Fi network, switch to a cell phone network as you go outside the office building, then conclude the call on a home wireless network and all this with no interruptions. A VoWLAN service will automatically sniff out and switch to a Wi-Fi network and switching to a Wi-Fi network will result in much better call quality. A VoWLAN connection is also faster and speeds up Internet surfing on on your phone (Cell phone 500kbps (kilobits per second) compare with wireless LAN with speeds up to 54mbps (megabits per second).

The calls should also be cheaper, but this is actaully something that still should be read should be cheaper. According to Olli-Pekka Lintula, director of Nokia?s strategic marketing at the technology platforms division, it?s still questionable whether using VoWLAN will actually be much cheaper. A hindrance for VoWLAN calls today is also is the lack of a charging method. ?It is not clear what earning model for mobile operators would be with cellular VoIP,? says IDC?s Pim Bilderbeek. According to Bilderbeek there is also talk about fixed line operators being the ones that would bring cellular VoIP phones to the market.

When?

If we have the technique what are we waiting for? The Wi-Fi phones and here is were the hardware vendors and Nokia come in. Wi-Fi phones is nothing new and testing has been done for several years now, but the early versions of Wi-Fi phones failed miserably because of the enormous drain on the batteries which must support two chipsets rather than one. These problems have been fixed (?) and some 15 Wi-Fi phones are predicted to hit the market in 2006. Most of the handsets will be expensive and marketed primarily toward business customers, at least for now. As an example, HP’s 6315 iPaq, which switches between traditional cellular and Wi-Fi networks, costs $500 - 600.

Nokia has announced that it will launch its first Wi-Fi phones for consumers in first half of 2006. They plan to start selling Wi-Fi phones already this year for businesses. Motorola has said its hybrid phone will be used primarily by businesses and have chose to use the 802.11a Wi-Fi standard, which is found almost exclusively in offices, rather than the more widely used 802.11b or 802.11g standards. Motorola is also expected to include a phone loaded with Skype.

Who wins?

As you can imagine VoWLAN and hybrid phones bring new threats and also opportunities to wireless carriers and traditional landline phone service providers. carriers could lose some revenue if Wi-Fi phones will be as popular as Nokia predicts (100 million wi-fi enabled cell phones globally by 2009). Some see the new Wi-Fi phones as an opportunity to cement the cell phone as a true replacement for traditional wired phones.

We, the consumers should win. But as long as the phones cost some 500 $, wireless broadband between $40 and $80 / month, and unlimited access to a nationwide Wi-Fi hot-spot network would add haltf of that a month, we are not the winners.

Nicolas Fogelholm writes for several online publications and has his own web sites and blogs. Nokia Info