News Briefs – Intel

As part of a keynote presentation hosted by Sean Maloney, executive vice-president for Intel’s mobility group, hundreds of developers were shown a live video feed from a cottage north of Toronto featuring David Robinson, Rogers’s vice-president of business implementation. Rogers set up the connection through Redline Communications’s RedMax equipment, which incorporates the Intel PRO/Wireless 5116 WiMAX modem silicon.WiMAX is based on the IEEE 802.16 standard that allows mobile devices to connect at broadband speeds with a longer range than Wi-Fi’s, maximum range of 100 metres. Intel has been working on a system-on-a-chip design supporting WiMAX, code-named Rosedale, that was discussed at last year’s developer forum.
In his brief video conversation with Maloney, Robinson called wireless broadband the next stage of high-speed Web access, adding Rogers hopes to use WiMAX to offer service in “underserved parts” of Canada.
Intel also used IDF to announce an extension of its mobility and security partnership with Cisco, which will see the two firms collaborate on what executives called the Business Class Wireless Suite. The software will be designed to make it easier to set up wireless networks using Intel-powered laptops, said Charles Giancarlo, chief development officer at Cisco.
“We could try to make it easy to use inside the network, but if it’s not easy to use on the notebook, we’re not getting anywhere,” Giancarlo said.
Maloney said Intel and Cisco will be working on enhanced voice-over-IP over Wi-Fi, as well as optimal access point selection, which he described as a “handshake guarantee” that the wireless connection a mobile system finds will have the appropriate bandwidth to run a user’s applications effectively.
“Most of the time your device is searching for the closest connection, but it’s not necessarily the strongest connection,” Maloney said, adding that mobile users need to make better use of broadband. “Your notebook is multi-tasking, whether you like it or not.”