Last week I had the chance to talk with Luc Roy at Siemens again. Luc leads a lot of the mobility efforts going on at Siemens and he's always got something interesting in the works. We talked about the latest announcement from Siemens that's hitting the wires everywhere today. The press release itself is down at the end of this post.

As the workforce becomes more mobile, workers need to be able to communicate with the same kind of effectivenetss no matter where they are: in meetings, shared workspaces, in the board-room, on the factory floor, or anywhere in between. Enterprise mobility means a lot more than just working without being wired to the network. It really means seamless connectivity from anywhere on the enterprise premises. It means unified voice, video, and data communications that follow workers, and not the other way around. This new Siemens HiPath Wireless looks to deliver on the promise of enterprise mobility.

Here's some info from one of the product documents they provided:

HiPath Wireless Engineered Mobility – Taking care of business

It starts with open, pervasive wireless connectivity
The key to advanced enterprise mobility is extending wireless network coverage wherever the workforce goes: indoors, outdoors, on the factory floor, and even beyond the boundaries of the enterprise. This wireless network absolutely must deliver high performance while being secure, manageable, reliable, and scalable in all of these places. HiPath Wireless delivers on all of these counts with award-winning security and management capabilities, as well as a suite of robust, high-performance platforms designed for companies of all sizes, and capable of delivering coverage in practically any location – even where wires can’t go.

The most complete WLAN and FMC portfolio
Siemens’ Enterprise-wide Foundation for Mobility suite of products and services offers all of the elements needed to deliver well-integrated end-to-end enterprise mobility. Siemens’ family of award-winning SIP-based IP communications platforms and a full range of IP phones provide a firm base for unified communications that HiPath Wireless can stretch across the entire enterprise. HiPath MobileConnect can then extend this enterprise mobility foundation out beyond the doors of the enterprise and into the public network, enabling seamless communication and collaboration virtually anywhere.World class service offerings provide the expertise needed to effectively bring all these pieces together.

The industry’s best VoWLAN performance and call quality
HiPath Wireless is unrivalled when it comes to delivering enterprise-grade voice over WLAN (VoWLAN). HiPath Wireless’ unique Distributed Packet Processing architecture optimizes traffic flow as well as advanced encryption and QoS functions to provide a high-performance backbone for voice, video, and data. Siemens is committed to maintaining leadership by supporting the latest QoS, roaming, and call admission control features and standards.

Multiple mobile solutions on a single WLAN infrastructure
No other WLAN solution is able to match HiPath Wireless when it comes to running a number of optimized mobility solutions on the same WLAN infrastructure. Siemens’ powerful VNS segmentation mechanism makes it easy to deploy new solutions on the existing WLAN infrastructure – each with optimal security, QoS, and network access settings – without having to re-configure the entire network. In conjunction with Siemens’ Distributed Packet Processing architecture, it is possible to optimize traffic flow on a per-solution basis, ensuring the optimal performance for each application.

Open Services Framework
Siemens has worked with mobile application and device partners from around the world to deliver certified solutions designed to meet your company’s mobility needs. The HiPath Ready designation ensures that customers are getting proven solutions, and a suite of open APIs ensures that further integration with the HiPath Wireless portfolio is fast and easy.

Siemens unmatched expertise
Siemens has established a reputation as a leading supplier of business solutions across a broad range of industries. Nobody else can deliver all the expertise needed to integrate applications and processes into efficient, high-value mobile business process solutions. This wide-ranging expertise forms the basis of Siemens’ innovative wireless communication solutions for businesses of every size and in a variety of sectors.

From Siemens – it’s open of course!
Siemens commitment to Open Communications ensures that enterprises can build their own OpenPath to FMC. No matter what stage your company is at or how ambitious your mobility strategy is, Siemens can help today while laying the foundation for the future.

That's a lot of promise, but in my experience watching Siemens closely for the past couple of years, they always deliver what they promise.



As Luc described to me, there are three really key areas Siemens initially saw this sort of offering focused on. The conferencing industry, which includes education facilities, healthcare and manufacturing. These enterprises all ahve a driving need for solid solutions that solve the POE problem with 802.11n. Siemens does that. After we talked, I understood how easy to manage the solution this new HiPath Wireless is, and how other network elements won't require forklift upgrading. In short, it integrates into the existing environment very easily. Luc and I talked about how this really provides a strong 802.11n WiFi solution for medium businesses across all sectors too.

Here's the big news in a quick nutshell. It's all about power.


Here's what Siemens is doing:


There's a reason I think this solution is a hot lead for the medium business market. Here's what I saw that really excited me -



WIPS security, the idea of wireless intrusion prevention and detection solutions is still a daunting challenge to many organizations. In particular, mid-sized companies who don't have the technical resources to focus on speciality areas of network security technologies tend to find themselves stymied with this sort of solution. Seimens bundling WIPS functionality right in the devices makes this solution a real no brainer.

Siemens Solves Power over Ethernet Challenge for 802.11n Deployments

Architecture and power consumption innovations drive down costs and complexity of 802.11n deployments

As more enterprises embrace mobility, they are faced with an increasing need for cost-effective, higher-performance wireless LANs (WLANs). While 802.11n delivers the higher speed and improved range they want, the cost and complexity of enabling an existing network to handle 802.11n has held many enterprises back. The new HiPath® Wireless 802.11n solution from Siemens Enterprise Communications is the first 802.11n solution to offer innovative architecture and power consumption capabilities to make the migration to fully functional, faster, more reliable 802.11n networks easier and more cost-effective. This secure wireless solution is a key part of Siemens’ open communications portfolio.

802.11n offers substantial benefits over previous wireless standards, with speeds up to five times faster than traditional WLANs, greater range and improved reliability to support high-performance mobile applications, such as HD video, high-resolution imaging and voice over wireless LAN (VoWLAN). However, with these benefits has come the considerable challenge of integrating the access points into an existing network, since additional power is required for dual-band 3x3 radios (those functioning in both the 2.4 and 5GHz bands) to work at optimum performance levels.

HiPath Wireless is the first solution to provide full dual-band 3x3 MIMO and 802.11n functionality that complies with the 802.3af Power-over Ethernet (PoE) standard, so enterprises can enjoy the highest performance without additional costs. Most enterprise WLANs rely on 802.3af switches, but the six radios used by 802.11n access points tend to draw more power than these switches can provide over a single connection. Some existing 802.11n solutions use a reduced number of radios or frequency bands, or force customers to simultaneously upgrade to higher-wattage, proprietary non-standard PoE switching infrastructure, resulting in significantly reduced performance and more complex and costly deployments.

“Enterprises are excited about 802.11n and the potential for new, high-performance wireless applications. But so far they have been hesitant to embrace the new technology out of concern that it will require significant changes to their existing network,” said Paul DeBeasi, senior analyst for Burton Group. “Siemens’ dual-band, 3x3 MIMO Access Points enable enterprises to deploy an 802.11n network using their existing 802.3af-compliant infrastructure.”

Siemens 802.11n solution enables enterprises to realize the full benefits of 802.11n, without costly upgrades to the backbone network and wireless controller infrastructure, thanks to its unique VNS (Virtual Network Services) architecture. The VNS architecture provides performance optimisation for high-bandwidth applications by intelligently routing network traffic between the edge of the network and the core, depending on the application and available network capacities, to maximise the bandwidth that can be achieved on the network. This architecture was designed to achieve optimal high-bandwidth performance without requiring upgrades to the existing wired network controllers, making it easier and more cost-effective to deploy and integrate the solution across the enterprise. Competitive solutions that require all traffic to be forwarded to the central WLAN controller lead to the potential for significant bottlenecks due to the substantially higher bandwidth of 802.11n. Many vendors require costly upgrades to the wired backbone and new wireless controllers to fully implement 802.11n.

Georgia World Congress Center (GWCC), one of the world’s leading convention, sports and entertainment venues, deployed the previous version of Siemens’ HiPath Wireless solution in December 2005 in response to increasing demand from venue users for wireless connectivity. With a campus that includes a 3.9 million square foot conference centre, the Georgia Dome stadium and the 21-acre Centennial Olympic Park, GWCC enjoyed the flexibility and ease of use offered by the Siemens system. They are preparing to begin field trials of the new 802.11n HiPath Wireless solution in January 2008, to take advantage of the increased speed, range and reliability of 802.11n.

“We’ve been very pleased with the functionality and stability of our existing Siemens HiPath Wireless solution, and we’re excited about the potential that 802.11n offers for improved performance and range,” said Sam Brown, Director of IT Services for the centre. “The fact that Siemens’ 802.11n portfolio does not require us to upgrade our switching infrastructure or our WLAN controllers ensures that we can seamlessly integrate 802.11n into our network with minimal cost and effort. Continuing to be a leader in technology in the convention industry is important to us. When we can increase speed, range and reliability of our wireless system, we know it’ll be great for our customers.”

Siemens’ 802.11n solution includes two new 802.11n HiPath Wireless Access Points, AP3610 (internal antenna) and AP3620 (external antenna), a new version of HiPath Wireless Convergence Software (V5 R1) that enables controllers to recognise and manage 802.11n access points, and a new version of HiPath Wireless Manager HiGuard that delivers advanced management and WIPS security for 802.11n-enabled networks, another key advancement from Siemens.

“In support of the mobile enterprise, Siemens now has a HiPath Wireless offering for new and existing customers looking to benefit from the considerable speed and reliability benefits provided by 802.11n technology,” said Luc Roy, vice president of Enterprise Mobility for Siemens. “The unique architecture and capabilities that we have designed into HiPath Wireless can give any enterprise the confidence that they can easily and cost-effectively deploy a high-performance wireless network, while taking care of ever increasing mobile business.”

Pricing and Availability
Siemens’ HiPath Wireless solution will begin shipping in March 2008. The new HiPath Wireless Access Points will sell for €960 ($1,300). Upgrades to the HiPath Wireless Convergence Software will start at €280 ($349) and HiPath Wireless Manager HiGuard upgrades are available free of charge.

About Siemens Enterprise Communications:
Siemens Enterprise Communications is one of the world’s leading vendors of Open Communications solutions for enterprises of all sizes, enabling business processes to be more productive, faster and more secure – with any device, network or information technology infrastructure. The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Siemens AG with 15,000 employees globally and headquarters in Munich.

Note: Siemens and HiPath are registered trademarks of Siemens AG or its subsidiaries and affiliates. All other company, brand, product and service names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.

This release contains forward-looking statements based on beliefs of Siemens management. The words "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "forecast," "expect," "intend," "plan," "should," and "project" are used to identify forward-looking statements. Such statements reflect the company's current views with respect to future events and are subject to risks and uncertainties. Many factors could cause the actual results to be materially different, including, among others, changes in general economic and business conditions, changes in currency exchange rates and interest rates, introduction of competing products, lack of acceptance of new products or services and changes in business strategy. Actual results may vary materially from those projected here. Siemens does not intend or assume any obligation to update these forward-looking statements.

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