wirednot

Where to start? I’m a Wi-Fi geezer, one of those old guys who have been doing wireless networking literally since before some of our newest ranks have been born. That means two things here:

1. I have seen a lot of lunacy out of the IEEE 802.11 working groups, the Wi-Fi Alliance, and the WLAN industry as a whole

2. I can assure you, the future looks no better beyond higher-end promised data rates that most client devices will never achieve.

Let me share some real-world use cases to back up my pissing and moaning.

Sorry, Our Client Devices Don’t Do THAT

Some years back when 802.1X authentication became commonplace for Wi-Fi client devices, it got apparent fast just how fragmented the client device market was (and still is). I rant often about “consumer” versus “enterprise” when it comes to device capabilities and the general idiocy of the anemic Alliance to reform and address actual topics of importance, so let’s skip that and get to specifics.

• Printers. There was a time when 802.1X WLAN authentication using PEAP with MS-CHAP v2 was the de facto conventional method for connecting Wi-Fi clients to large business WLANs. And on those large networks, users occasionally need to print. Using printers. On the network. I remember a long and laborious phone call with a senior HP printer development person trying to explain that we needed their printers to do this very standard 802.1X authentication, and it went nowhere. We never found a common technical language to speak on the call, and it was obvious to me that his team lived not only on another planet, but that their planet is in another galaxy far, far, away.
• TVs. Recently, my team troubleshot a Samsung TV that couldn’t connect to a wide open SSID. That SSID happened to be doing OWE Transition mode, and the TV did not play well in the very presence of OWE even though Transition mode is “allowed”.
• This swimming pool thing. Again, troubleshooting a device that won’t connect to an open network.

This high-quality gadget was bought by a large Athletics organization to monitor pool stuff while it floats around. Except… it has very specific WLAN needs per the vendor.

Our gateway is only compatible with standard 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi networks that use WPA/WPA2 Personal security. Open networks (without a password) and more advanced configurations such as WPA3 or OWE are unfortunately not supported at the moment.

As a workaround, we recommend creating a dedicated 2.4 GHz network with WPA/WPA2 security enabled, or using a simple hotspot with a password for the initial setup.

Just a few of many…

Just Whip Up Another SSID!

So what”s the problem? Just crank up a new SSID or three to accommodate all of the oddballs. But wait- too many SSIDs will fill the air with management frames and soon the WLAN landscape will grind to a sucky slowness that sucks because of the slowness! Just ask Andrew von Nagy on that…

But it’s not just the SSID sprawl or expensive magic-in-the middle that MAYBE lets you get away with multiple PSKs on the same SSID that you need to do for endless oddball wirelessly-connected gadgets. I’ve also been told all of the following gems by out-of-touch Wi-Fi client device makers through the years when they wanted to sell a “solution” into our large WLAN environment:

• Our devices are 2.4 GHz only, and they NEED no 5 GHz in the area or they won’t work.
• We need each of our low-data Wi-Fi devices (hundreds of them) to have their own SSID, and preferably an AP dedicated to each with MAC filtering for things we can’t explain. Just do it.
• Our crap only works on a 192.168.1.x/24 subnet.
• Sorry, we MUST use our own wireless router and it MUST be on a 40 MHz channel in 2.4 GHz. Please turn yours off.

I couldn’t make this foolishness up if I tried…

They Say It, We Pay It

Now back over to the network side of Wi-Fi. Don’t you LOVE subscriptions? Don’t you love renting that which you also must buy? And don’t you love “smart” licensing that makes you feel stupid because even Grok can’t understand it?

Value.

This is what we have collectively morphed into. All hail recurring revenue! Now for an added bonus, let’s make each AP cost as much as a ten-pack of APs used to cost… No, wait- we can do better. Let’s make each AP cost as much as TWO ten-packs used to cost. Now we’re up to our ass-bones in value, I tellya. And don’t get too comfy, because in three years the vendors will start the cyclic brainwashing about how you have to replace everything you just bought with the next gen stuff, because value.

But Faster! Faster Forgives All Sins, No? No, it doesn’t.

802.11 “standards” are bizarre. Each one promises more feature shit that can’t be achieved beyond in lab settings under carefully controlled circumstances. But the marketing and hype would have you believe that each is a slam dunk that will deliver 50 Gbps wireless after you drop your coin.

– MU-MIMO? Doesn’t really work in the real world.

– TWT? Doesn’t really work in the real world.

– Bigass wide channels? Don’t really work in the real world.

– 4096 QAM? Good luck with that in the real world

– MLO? Remains to be seen, but absolutely will be limited in actual rel-world usefulness.

This list goes on. Like 8×8 clients (riiiiiiiiight). And it matters greatly because each non-achievable feature gets marketed out the arse and contributes to fictional performance numbers that the industry needs their faithful customer sheep to swallow to keep the magic revenue streams coming.

Put another way- WE ARE NOT GETTING WHAT WE ARE PAYING FOR. Run and tell THAT, bitches.

Do we even want to address the fact that after almost 30 years of Wi-Fi, the WLAN subsystems in Windows laptops are still festering little fragile crap volcanoes waiting to erupt with problems when the drivers get too old (or too new, sometimes)? Nah, my head hurts going there.

AI Stands For Ain’t Improving

Thankfully, Artificial Intelligence is here to make it all right.

No wait, let me rephrase that- thankfully artificial intelligence is here to make the vendors even more money as they convince us how much we need AI while none of the systemic underpinnings of dysfunction are actually being addressed. That’s what really matters. And like clockwork, here comes the next hype-cycle.

Here I sit in the Phoenix Airport with time to kill and my mind full o’ stuff from the last few days spent at this year’s Wireless LAN Professionals Conference (aka WLPC, aka Keithapalooza). Naturally, my session “Go Open or Go Home” won the Golden Yagi Award, and my sexy was pegged when I laid down the truth.

But enough about me, let’s talk about the conference. No, actually let’s stick with ME and some of the things I found myself thinking during the conference. You can agree or disagree, in my America you have that freedom- Jack.

WTF Was Coleman Actually Talking About?

802.11bc… Enhanced Broadcast Services… EBCS… some wireless foolywang that doesn’t require clients to be associated to the network or some such. 

What? 

It was actually pretty interesting, and is on my list of sessions to watch again when they come out on video. And I have to watch it again, because I did not really understand what Mr. C was jabbering about in any quality way.

What Hintersteiner Said… Spot On.

Wi-Fi is transitioning from MATURE to AGING.

Wi-Fi 8 won’t bring any speed increases to sell. 

Wi-Fi 8’s improvements will only be noticeable under controlled conditions.

I’m down with all of these. Wi-Fi is not only getting long in the tooth, it’s also starting to show dementia in spots. The new standards are just so much foolishness, but that one I’ll come back to when I talk about Wes Purvis.

Jason also said Wireless Networking is not a technology industry anymore, it’s now a service industry. People just expect it to be there wherever they go.

While I get where he’s coming from, I can’t say that I agree. I would absolutely apply that statement to mobile data networks, but in my reality, none of us who DO wireless (as opposed to selling it or providing managed services) owes anyone a no-hurdles WI-Fi experience. Network design and access to me helps enforce policy and operational goals, and we all are entitled to our own policies and goals. Fast, free, and frictionless… sure, if that makes sense for YOUR WLAN. But again, we all get to define our WLANs.

And that brings me to… PERSPECTIVE.

Your Perspective Reflects Where You Sit in the WLAN Ecosystem

I’m a customer, a system designer and administrator, and a networking manager. I want stability balanced with performance. I don’t embrace the lunacy that is the latest several 802.11 standards. And this brings us back to Wes Purvis- but first allow me a quick aside.

Quick aside: my own Mount Rushmore of conference speakers is comprised of Wes Purvis, Jim Vajda, Jerry Olla, and Joel Crane. When any of these gents speak, I see a pure golden aura of wisdom shaped by experience and just as important, reality. And each is just a darn nice guy, to boot.

My man Wes said something during one of his presentations like “it takes a couple of years for us to find out what parts of a standard are going to work” and he also showed a timeline of new 802.11 standards being introduced every few years. So I as an end-user am supposed to be OK with this industry embracing this weird, sloppy culture of “maybe this shit will work, maybe it won’t… give us a couple of years to figure it what parts of the standard are snake oil, and as an added bonus a year later we’ll start all over again with the next standard”?

I am NOT OK with this. At times, the lunacy in the room at WLPC is palpable. That has nothing to do with Wes- that is the Bizzaroland we in wireless all live in.

At some point, my astute wingman Charles Bronson whispered to me “we’re over 25 years into Wi-Fi, and shitty clients still dictate how our finely designed and tuned networks are going to perform. That’s BS.”

Indeed. 

And Rasika Nayanajith gave a painfully accurate overview of the “if this, then that” permutations of WLAN security which to me, only emphasizes the dysfunction of the WLAN industry.

Who did this? I’ll tell you- the IEEE, the Wi-Fi Alliance, and the industry as a whole. So much weapons-grade suck and sloppiness brought to bear on one technology. But hey- we got a growing stable of really good survey tools to validate our excellent cells that are filled with crappy clients and busted standards in the air.

And Another Thing…

The fish and chips I had for lunch are making me sleepy so I better move this along. Other fleeting thoughts:

• Was fascinating to watch Jerry and Jussi design the WLAN for a 37 story building in less than ten minutes. How many jobs did AI just kill with that?
• While the WLAN standards and the discussions around them drift further out into The Sea of Insanity, the tool space that supports it all is getting profoundly more competitive and very cool with offerings from established and newer players alike.
• I’m just going to say it- something is a bit off with the methodology of the Wi-Fi Awards when Cisco wins everything versus all of the other talent in the room. Maybe new categories like Infrastructure, Tools, Hype, etc? I don’t know how to fix it, but it felt skewed this go round. 
• I would have loved to see more end-user case studies and less from Industry big names. Hopefully that materializes in the future. 
• Today’s wireless security paradigms are a royal freakin’ mess. Great job all, I say sarcastically.
• I’m tickled pink to see Ubiquiti showing up at events like WLPC and Mobility Field Day. The Big Guns of networking need to face that real innovation doesn’t have to cost customers their kidneys when it comes to costs.
• Drew Lentz just may be as nuts as I am.

There is much, much more to ponder and appreciate. I will be watching several of the sessions, for sure. It was a great event, despite any negative vibes this blog may give.

Keepin’ it real, yo.

I’m a Wi-Fi geezer. I’ve been doing Wi-Fi at scale since the days of the Cisco 340 and 350 access points. I’ve been doing it so long that EXCITING NEW STANDARDS bore the living piss outta me with their hype and disconnection from the real world of crappy client devices. There is nothing standard about Wi-Fi standards, and that’s a shame. It’s also not the point of this blog.

THIS is the point of this blog. It’s the Clip- a powerful and compact new WLAN support platform from Hamina.

Another Tool in the Hamina Shed

But wait- this must mean the Nomad is being replaced? No, not at all. And we’ll get to all that, so hold yer tater.

Even before we get to the Clip, let me share yet another opinion. As boring and overhyped as the standards and many WLAN infrastructure offerings have gotten, quite the opposite has been afoot in the wireless support tool space of late. This is where you’ll find APPLICABLE innovation, not just pie-in-sky goofy-ass promises of 50 Gbps Wi-Fi and AI- enhanced everything (that frequently has no clue what it’s actually supposed to be doing for mankind). No ma’am, in the tool space, fascinating gadgetry and software that actually makes a difference to those who do wireless is coming out from companies like Intuitabits, Sidos, NetAlly, and Hamina. I salute this side of the industry with as much vigor as I use making rude gestures at the IEEE 802.11 working group and the Wi-Fi Alliance (and I grew up with Italian people, so I know some gestures, I assure you).

So what’s up with the Clip?

Hello, Clip- It’s Nice to Meet You

I got a personal pre-release overview from PEOPLE OF TITLE at Hamina, because I run in those circles. And a bald guy told me that Clip does not replace Nomad- instead it provides a lower-cost, smaller form factor survey and troubleshooting device that more WLAN doers should be able to afford and carry. Nomad still has its place, and the spectrum analysis capability that Clip lacks, but each is tri-band, robustly-built, and compelling in its own way.

Let’s zoom in a bit and eyeball what Clip looks like up close:

But How Do You Connect it to Something and Then Test?

The Clip isn’t just small and heartily built to survive rough environments, drops, and raucous after-parties- it also connects to your iPhone or iPad fast and easy. And then it stays connected. You turn it on, get it close to the phone or tablet, and the connection simply happens. Furthermore, per Hamina:

Thanks to advanced compression and buffering mechanisms, the wireless Bluetooth (BLE) connection stays robust. No cables. No data loss.​ ​And if the RF environment gets seriously hairy, Clip will warn you to use a cable instead.​

Once you are connected and the Hamina Onsite App has been invoked, both devices are in play for evaluation of the WLAN:

– iPad / iPhone radio ​is used for connectivity (Orb score) testing, and roaming detection, etc.​

-Hamina Clip / Nomad radios takes RF measurements including ​full-time all-AP scanning, Signals/MAC/channel /BSSID/ etc.​ and more.

Little Device, Big Story. Learn More!

Hamina’s presence in the WLAN tool industry is big and growing. The Clip is an important new part of it, but is also just one part of an ecosystem worth getting to know better if you are unfamiliar or dated in what you think you know about the company. The Clip’s launch is covered here: https://lnkd.in/eQZQtRhV

Wi-Fi has been transformational to society. So has cellular. And satellite. No news here, but over the last few days I’ve been truly appreciating Bluetooth, and the reason why needs a little backstory.

Stupid is as stupid does

I’m getting to the point in my life where old injuries are coming back to remind me that I was once young, and both fearless and stupid in equal parts. Between my military time and a love for playing sports and driving really fast dirtbikes and ATVs way up in the air, I racked up at least twenty broken bones, four nose breaks, some cracked ribs, and endless gashes leading to lots of stitches. There is a bit of PTSD in the mix, too. Less of that from the military and more from other events like being literally stoned in Haiti and losing a molar to a rock upside the head. (That one inspired one of my books.) Yeah, I’ve had my ass and mind kicked all over the world.

Stay with me, we’re getting to the Bluetooth…

When the hearing goes, it doesn’t come back

Among the various ways my body has been altered is a profound loss of hearing at the upper ranges, compliments of all those close-quarter years around F-4, A-10, F-111 and other aircraft on Air Force flightlines. If my ears weren’t getting pounded by the engines on those wonderful fighters or the loud ground support equipment we used with them, I had almost constant indoor exposure to loud test equipment back in the electronic warfare shop. Yes, I wore hearing protection where I was supposed to, but it obviously wasn’t enough.

Technology to the rescue

It took me decades to admit just how damaged I am. But that brings us to the Phonak Sphere. One for each ear.

These hearing aids are fantastic, and you can read about all of the whiz-bang AI and other magic in them on the link pages. It is fascinating what they jam in that small form factor, and if you are on your way to hearing aids it is worth digging into. But I promised an homage to Bluetooth specifically, and that is what you shall get.

Quick aside- learning about hearing aids

BUT FIRST… some general knowledge I’ve gained about hearing aids.

• They can be ungodly expensive. Mine are like $7K list for the set.
• Insurance generally doesn’t cover them, or only covers a part of them.
• If you have odd shaped ear canals (from scuba diving or long exposure to cold wind) like I do, you’ll probably need “custom molds” for the part that goes in your ears.
• They need initial tuning based on your own hearing exam so only what frequencies that need higher gain get it, versus amplifying everything. Then a month later you might need more tuning. To watch the process is pretty fascinating. The audiologist uses some pretty swanky software.
• It can take weeks for your brain to rewire itself to fully process the new soundscape that you live in.

Yeah, I know. Bluetooth. On with it.

Let’s finally talk Bluetooth

These Phonak Sphere units have Bluetooth. They can pair with a pretty powerful app on your phone. That alone is handy as it lets you adjust things to a certain point (but not with as much fitness as your audiologist can exercise on your behalf). The Spheres can pair with up to eight devices simultaneously, with any two active at a time. And they are fantastic for music, movie audio, phone calls etc.

But wait, there’s more. Behold this little rascal:

It’s been a game-changer for me. I listen to A LOT of weird stuff- from emergency communications to shortwave and ham radio. And more. On maybe a dozen different devices. With this adapter, I Bluetooth pair the hearing aids with it once and then move the adapter to the speaker output of whatever device I’m listening to for amazingly crystal-clear sound. I’m using it on multiple laptops and all of my radio hobby devices. It will also provide audio for the in-flight entertainment system when I fly out to Phoenix for the Wireless LAN Professionals Conference.

Pair once, listen to countless devices.

Geez, Lee. That’s a lot of writing to sing the praises of a Bluetooth audio adapter. Big friggin’ deal… It’s not even one of the better ones. Pffft.

Maybe it IS just an adapter. But for someone new to hearing aids, it’s incredibly empowering.

Thank you, Bluetooth.

I know countless people have hearing aids. I’m not special in any way. But each of us has our own transition into the world of assisted hearing. Thanks for reading about my mine, and how Bluetooth is becoming a silver lining to something I wish I didn’t need but that I know I do.

We network people spend a lot of time dealing with protocols like the TCP/IP suite… there’s no escaping it. But yesterday I found myself contemplating another kind of IP. Alas, I dropped my phone into our swimming pool. Suddenly I was face to face with Ingress Protection ratings, aka IP.

Before we go down that road, let me show you the clip of the voices in my head in those painful seconds as I looked down at my Pixel 7a lying there on the bottom, mocking me.

Of course, I deserved all that. Just a year ago I catastrophically busted my previous phone in yet another spontaneous act of stupidity almost in the same exact spot as my latest bonehead move.

But back to that submerged phone. And IP.

Summoning all of my mas macho, I flung meself into the briny deep on the salvage mission. As I descended to almost a full one-hundred centimeters, my mind was sure that I’d be bringing back a brick and I’d need to spend a wad of cash to get a new phone. But as I grabbed the Pixel 7a off of the floor, I saw that it was still alive. It was even chiming with incoming alerts from various messaging platforms.

Hmmm… maybe I’m not screwed after all.

I did have an alert from the phone itself about the USB-C charging port detecting water and shutting itself off. So I assumed that this would be a delayed, but inevitable, failure of the phone. Out of desperation, I propped it in front of a fan and got back to my workday for a couple of hours, expecting to find it hosed up later.

Surprisingly, when I checked it again the USB-C water condition had cleared. The phone seemed fine. I made a couple of test calls, and breathed a sigh of relief. Then I hit the interwebs to see what magic was at play. Being quite irresponsible at times, I have killed my share of phones in water-related incidents over the years. Boats, sump pits, other swimming pools- if I’m near water, I have a natural talent to send a phone to its doom. This Pixel 7a had ruined my streak.

I’m somewhat versed in Intrusion Prevention ratings from dealing with outdoor network components, cameras, radio hobbies, and a range of things that benefit from being constructed to withstand varying degrees of water exposure. But I haven’t really considered the IP of phones… To me, they are generally over-expensive necessities that need to be handled gingerly because the universe is always waiting to break them at the worst possible time. But suddenly my curiosity is piqued. What could be the IP rating of the Pixel 7a that let it survive its swim?

I asked Clovis, my super-secret AI consort:

And there it was… my phone had splashed down in the shallow end of our in-ground, and I had retrieved it in seconds. So it thankfully lived up to its IP67 rating, as advertised.

Here are a few other common IP ratings:

Many phones have IP68 ratings, but thankfully IP67 was enough to get me out of my potential jam. I just don’t want to buy another phone right now, and this Pixel 7a has been quite reliable with a feature set that works for me at a reasonable price compared to others out there.

Motorola put out a good explainer that goes deeper on phone IP ratings and why you should pay attention to this spec regardless of what brand you buy.

I won this round, but I have no doubt that eventually I’ll find some other unfortunate way to break this phone. Thankfully though, it probably won’t be related to water damage.

You won’t find another networking niche where seeing the energy on the medium is so important, nor will you find handier all-in-one highly portable Wi-Fi tools than those from NetAlly. When you want a single compact tool that can do just about everything you could need in a Wi-Fi environment, the NetAlly AirCheck G3 is your huckleberry. Add in a feature set for the LAN side of life as well, and the EtherScope nXG is the thing. The capabilities of these analysis tools are only equaled by their ease of use, and I’m obviously a fan. I recommend NetAlly- and these two tools specifically- at every opportunity.

I’m here to tell you that NetAlly’s wireless visibility recently got even better, with the introduction of the NXT-2000 Tri-Band Spectrum Analyzer. It’s an option you’ll want if you support Wi-Fi. Sometimes you absolutely need to see what’s happening at the RF level when it comes to characterizing wireless goings on, and this is what spectrum analyzers do. They show you a plot of signal strength versus frequency in raw form, so you can look for interference and other radio anomalies that shouldn’t be there because they can impact Wi-Fi performance. The NXT-2000 comes with a slick external antenna that can be leveraged as needed or left in the bag.

The new magic in play here beyond the previous model NXT-1000 is the addition of the 6 GHz band. This is handy given the rapid adoption going on now with Wi-Fi 6E and the arrival of Wi-Fi 7. We truly live in a tri-band world now. Here’s some 6 GHz action in my home office:

The default view is to show the entire band of interest, whether 2.4, 5 or 6 GHz. In the above image I used the touchscreen on my nXG to zoom in a bit for better resolution of the part of the band I was interested in. The whole 6 GHz band looks like this:

Here’s 5 GHz in my office today:

All images so far have been using the internal antenna on the new spectrum analyzer. Now let’s put the NXT-2000 to use finding a rogue AP and then some wideband interference, and add in it’s external antenna to see what it does to enhance the signal detection.

Here we have an interloper on channel 60. Some rascal has creeped into my environment and popped in a rogue AP. From where I sit in my command center sipping Topo Chico, I see the signal at around -64 dBm.

Being lazy, or should I say efficient, I don’t want to just go wandering around like a blind mole looking for that channel 60 AP. So I pop on the directional external antenna and enable it in the Spectrum app settings, and then I slowly rotate in my chair until I see the signal of interest increase.

Oh looky- we got a good bit stronger in one direction thanks to the external directional antenna. That tells us where to start looking, and the technique can be used to home in on the exact place where the offending device has been put. (In this case, I used the WiFimetrix device from Nuts About Nets to generate a signal to test against.)

Now let’s look at some wideband interference. We won’t call it jamming per se, as jamming is illegal and I never do things that might get me in trouble with The Man. No sir, this is just some garden variety wideband noise, I assure you. But we’re using it to again show how the external directional antenna helps us to find it.

Sweet Sassy Mollassy- look at that ugly red wideband stuff sitting across our 2.4 GHz band!

What the hell, man? This won’t do. Let’s just get that directional external antenna hooked up to the NXT-2000 and see if we can’t get that RF noise to come in stronger from a specific direction.

OK… antenna is connected…. slowly turning… slowly turning… Whoa Nelly- what do we have here? Do you see the increase in received signal strength?

We’ve found the vector it’s coming from, now lets see if we can’t get closer… Hmmm, down the hall, into the break room… damn- look at that!

Looks like Bronson stuck a bunch of forks in the microwave oven again and set them to cook for several hours… Hopefully you get the point. The directional antenna is a nice add, and it definitely serves a purpose. Because we’re wireless people, here are the specs on that external antenna:

And speaking of purpose, the NXT-2000 serves a number of purposes. As you’ve seen here, we now have visibility into the 6 GHz spectrum. That’s the big add. But just as important is the ability to also see and support the other two Wi-Fi bands. It’s a nice option for a couple of nice tools that do a nice job of keeping your WLAN running nicely. All spectrum images in this piece were saved to the nXG and then saved to LinkLive– which is another nice feature.

What’s not to love? Well, maybe this: NXT-2000 is only supported on AirCheck G3 and CyberScope Air models manufactured after August 2024. The EtherScope nXGs and CyberScopes are not date constrained. Those with older G3s and CyberScope Airs interested in the NXT-2000 are encouraged to talk to their NetAlly sales reps for upgrade options. The issue is the specific USB-A port circuitry used and its capabilities. And how do you know the build date of your tester? Let me tell you, because I’m all about value.

Having spent almost eight hours with Nile’s senior technical leadership to get more familiar with the company’s unique approach to LAN and WLAN, I can say upfront that I appreciate the ambition and effectiveness of the solution. You will not find a framework that more effectively tackles design challenges like VLAN management and network security and makes it look easy if you can get there. But can you “get there”? Not all environments will be able to. And if you do get there, expect a different kind of daily network management experience.

A Geezer’s Take

For those of you who don’t know me well, a quick intro is in order. I’ve been in networking for almost thirty years now, following over a decade spent doing electronic warfare for Uncle Sam. I’ve also worked as a freelance analyst and writer with lots of opportunities to look at a range of different networking companies, products, and strategies. I don’t know it all, but I have done and continue to do enterprise networks big and small. I’m a certified expert in some things, a qualified professional in others, and then there are technical areas where I’m an utter buffoon but have the wisdom to yield to my betters. I was an early cloud-managed networking adopter, but I also understand the pros and cons versus on-prem. This all shapes my perspective on the cloud-managed, As a Service delivered Nile solution.

A New Lexicon

In learning about Nile, I found myself needing to hear many things twice and then to have them explained to me with simple words. There’s just so much the starts off feeling differently, even if underneath it’s really not that far from what we’re used to in legacy networking. This effect made locking on to Nile’s methodology harder for me, but it is what it is. Let’s consider the Nile Service Block as an example.

Um, what the hell is a service block?

Sounds odd to the trained networking ear at first, yes. But the Service Block is just switches and access points. That’s it. Well, kinda/sorta. There are different sized service blocks for networks of varying sizes, and to migrate to Nile is to use both their switches and access points from Day 1. This is not optional- you must use 100% Nile switches and APs within the Nile framework. Sounds easy in small environments, and potentially impossible in larger ones where switches and APs are numbered in the thousands- especially given that switch lifecycles may be much, much longer than AP lifecycles.

UPDATE: Nile reminds me that on the topic of needing to use all Nile APs and switches- This is right but our customers can migrate one floor or one building at a time. One doesn’t need to forklift the entire network at once. I accept that, but I don’t see it as scalable for other than a complete, rapid migration.

A Different Philosophy

One of the things I struggled with learning about Nile was the voice in my head that kept saying stuff like “this isn’t how I do it now… these are radical operational changes…” But finally that all melded into a Grand Realization. For most network solutions, you buy bits and pieces and shape their configs to meet your networking operational philosophies and goals. With Nile, you are buying an operational philosophy, and your networking approach and team dynamics will need to adapt to that philosophy.

Is that bad? No, not at all- especially given that most of Nile’s vison is impressive. But’s a pretty radical departure, from “normal” networking. It’s also something that not all customers will like the feel of. After I got a deep look at some of Nile’s key advantages like Layer 2 issues being completely eliminated and zero-trust security that will not be topped by any other solution, I started to realize the payoff to accepting the Religion of Nile. But as I said, that won’t be for everyone. Especially given that some simple-to-me changes need to be asked for from Nile- as in you need support to make certain changes to the environment that today would be commonplace engineering tasks.

Where Does Nile’s Approach Work Well?

Though my mind does not yet accept Nile as a big environment player (unless that big environment has endless time and money and is very, very thin on networking staff), I can see myself potentially loving the solution in small to medium environments up to dozens of switches and a few hundreds of APs. Why does my mind cap it there? It just does- my personal frame of reference sees that as a natural boundary to the Nile story. Nile will disagree, and I don’t claim to be right on this- just telling you how I see it.

Nile’s management and monitoring views are fantastic, I must say.

UPDATE: Nile reminds me that despite my trepidation “We have very large campus deployments – 40 building campus; 200K people conference center where an event hosted 55K people on our network; 2M Sqft Distribution Center. In terms of scale, you may have an opinion but we have proven to scale to large sites and large concentrations of people.” I’m sure the solution scales, but my opinions about the complexities of getting there in other than greenfield deployments remain. But I do thank Nile for their input.

What About Wi-Fi, Specifically?

First the good- after seeing Nile’s AI-enabled wireless management framework, I have no doubt that they are solid. Solid for client access. Solid for security. Solid for radio management in general. Solid for smooth integration between the LAN and the WLAN.

But again, it’s the getting there that may be a bit thorny to accept.

As mentioned, you will need Nile’s APs AND their switches. There are no wallplate APS offered. There are no external antenna APs offered. There are no Wi-Fi 7 APs on the roadmap yet as of today. And… before you can deploy Nile APs, every space where they will be used needs an Ekahau survey done and design verified by Nile. Why? They can’t guarantee excellent performance if they haven’t approved the design. I get it, but I don’t… In that this gets into the waters of what Nile is “responsible for” versus what the end user’s IT team (if there is one) is responsible for. To me, as a 20 year WLAN design professional, I don’t want a vendor’s approval as a rule. I know my spaces better than they do. But, I do somewhat get the “why” of the requirement- but I also strongly disagree with Ekahau-only.

UPDATE- Nile has informed me that both Wi-Fi 7 APs and APs with directional antennas are in fact in development. (Not so with wallplate APs.)

What if I want to disable legacy data rates? That’s the kinda thing you need to ask Nile to do, you don’t have the administrative freedom to do it yourself. There are enough examples of this “you have to ask” stuff that it can feel offensive as a WLAN professional. Again, just my opinion.

Nile shows sensors as part of the solution, but I struggle to see the value of the additional cost if everything else is controlled and engineered so tightly. They are an optional aspect of the solution. Maybe they have an operational value that I can’t grasp but I can’t say I’m warm on them.

As a Service Messaging, Messaging in General

Also my opinion- Nile is different enough as a solution that they need to be careful in their messaging. Throw too many “we’re different because of THIS” at us, and it gets overwhelming and can be a turn-off. Zero Trust alone is enough to ask people to swallow when they haven’t gone down that road before, as is totally replacing all APs AND ethernet switches as a requirement. Then throw in the “you MUST do” and “you CAN’T do” bullets, and your head might start to hurt. It can be a lot to process, even before you get to the question of what does “As a Service” mean.

Just as I now accept that the Nile solution is technically compelling (if you can live with the what it takes to get there), I also accept that As a Service doesn’t necessarily mean that in-house network engineers are no longer needed and that jobs will be lost. Nile needs to really, really be careful about saying things like “oh, that’s OUR responsibility” when marketing to mature IT teams. My network, my responsibility. Nile and their partners work for their customers, and not all customers are ready to relinquish control and design authority to Nile.

I have learned that the Nile solution does have a fair amount of use-case flexibility that starts with rigid Zero Trust but then adapts. To me, Nile really needs to do a better job of touting their flexibility versus their rigidity. To make those adaptations, you will have to work with their support team. How smooth is that process? I can’t say that I know as I have never gone that path.

Also on the topic of messaging, Nile needs to catch up with competitors in some regards- by now, Wi-Fi 7 has to be a declarable road-map item. And to go after bigger, more risk-adverse customers, any mention of “we’re a startup” needs to be stowed.

Final Impressions

Nile has some pretty big Silly Valley names in play that run the company and who have developed the solution. And the solution is impressive. But it’s also different enough on many levels that those same big Silly Valley names need to realize that the rest of us are slow to lock onto things that shake our reality and introduce too many changes at once. Many potential customers will never make it to the good part of the story if they get lost along the way trying to understand all that feels confusing and maybe a little threatening up front. I wish them the best, and truly appreciate the time I spent with Nile getting educated.

For various reasons, I’ve found myself bumping into LoRaWAN as a wireless networking construct over the last couple of years. If you’re not familiar, this is IoT-oriented low power, long range (sometimes), low bandwidth kind of stuff that integrates with the larger connected world if needed via Ethernet, Wi-Fi or cellular backhaul. (Read more on the general theory and state of LoRaWAN here). In my professional world, I turn to LoRaWAN as an option when Wi-Fi just isn’t the right situational fit. Outside of work, I’m one of those nerdy radio hobbyists who frequently has a radio scanner or amateur radio station on in the background and who gets excited about topics like shortwave radio, SDR, and all kinds of things with antennas sticking off of them.

Which brings us to Meshtastic.

Described thusly:

An open source, off-grid, decentralized, mesh network built to run on affordable, low-power devices

Meshtastic has captured my fancy, at least for a little while. It is based on LoRa technology and devices. It’s really neat stuff, until you hit it’s current limits. Then it’s kinda just there. But just there is often the demarcation line between casual geekery and those who refuse to believe that there isn’t always more to discover.

So what it is Meshtastic supposed to really BE? It promises to be both decentralized and off-grid, allowing you to have a private means to message (as in text message) other devices in a secure fashion without the use of the Internet. That’s really it. Internet goes down. Cellular goes down. The proverbial Shit Has Hit The Fan moment has arrived. As long as Meshatastic nodes stay powered up (and there are lots of ways to keep them powered up), those on the mesh can stay in touch.

Aside from that basic premise, you can also do utility type applications with sensors via Meshtastic, like triggering a notification if someone opens a gate kinda stuff. There CAN be an optional Internet tie-in with MQTT if you want more activity through your node than is happening on just the local mesh, but MQTT can be kinda polarizing given that it is at odds with the philosophy of off-grid.

Gotta Have Nodes to Make a Mesh

I currently have three nodes (there are a couple of dozens out there to pick from, between complete units and kits) , each bought with a different purpose in mind.

1. RAKwireless WisMesh Tap– being lazy, I didn’t want to build anything for my first node, and I’m a sucker for touchscreens. I also like fully self-contained and weather-proof so I can play in the elements. Currently, this is serving as my solar-powered, always-on outside node.
2. LilyGo T-Echo– I wasn’t getting a lot of mesh activity from my WisMesh talking to local nodes, so I picked up a second node to have my own send/receive test environment. The T-echo is quite popular among the Meshtastic crowd, despite it’s toy-like feel. And it’s cheap for a complete node.
3. Sensecap T-1000E– this little card-sized gem was bought to be highly portable. Put in on a lanyard and get out on my bicycle. Or hang it from the rear view mirror of the truck on road trips. Or hang it from the drone and get up a few hundred feet for 10-15 minutes. Yes, it’s a compromise when it comes to antenna options (you git what you git and don’t throw a fit) but this thing travels well with long battery life and could be fantastic on the trail etc for people to stay in touch and share locations.

Almost all pre-built nodes out there will come with native GPS. Of my three, they all are easier to use with my Android phone as the interface to the mesh, with the Meshtastic app via Bluetooth- but the WisMesh TAP doesn’t NEED the phone- you can send and read messages on the screen but the phone app is much easier and more feature rich.

Here’s what a partial node view looks like when monitoring Meshtastic:

And some traffic among nodes:

What to Do, What to Do?

To me, you do the following when it comes to Meshtastic:

• Learn the basics, before you deploy anything
• Get or build a node
• Make a quick contact or two
• Realize “um, OK… that was mildly satisfying”
• Let the batteries die and get on with life- or figure out what else you can do to keep going with Meshtastic (this point may play out often over time)

The learning part is easy- besides the Meshtastic web pages there are a lot of good videos out there, like from The Comms Channel. What your starting node strategy will be is up to you to decide. Will you even make a contact? That depends… if you live out in the middle of nowhere or just don’t have many other Meshers round you, your efforts to make contact may be fruitless. Like all things radio, increased height and a better antenna may increase your chances. For me, it took several attempts over a number of days before I got a courtesy “your node is working” reply.

And THIS is where you’ll either lose interest or dig deeper into your geekery.

Meshtastic isn’t like ham radio or even GMRS where you can easily find someone at the other end of the string to yap with. Sure, I have had some quick and cordial exchanges with other nodes on the mesh, but generally its far more purpose-specific. Like a private group setting up a private channel for private comms while ignoring the primary public channel. No one owes you a response.

What Next?

If you do advance past the Been There, Done That stage, things can get interesting. For me, this was where I put my solar-powered node together.

And where I started to take my T-1000E everywhere to gather mesh info and maybe make a little traffic in new places. I played with different antennas, and exercised my various spectrum analyzers to watch the RF side of things- it’s nice to have a reason to get out of the Wi-Fi bands and look at other RF space.

But day to day, unless I’m actually inventing some reason to do something with Meshtastic, it’s pretty static. If I had a close-by group of fellow geeks that were all into it, I’m sure my own Meshtastic journey would be more exciting. I do see some flickers of that in a couple of Facebook groups where people talk about what they have going on. In my local area there’s not much activity in the public channel from nearby nodes, and so Meshtastic for me is an interesting technology that’s just kinda there in the background. Which arguably it’s supposed to be, until it’s needed- which gets us back to the original Meshtastic mission statement.

Like I said- boring, yet fascinating.

In the past few years, Synology has upped their game when it comes to video surveillance. Long established as a NAS leader, Synology’s Surveillance Station and companion apps have been expanding the company into the IP security video space with the same well-designed approach that has made their network storage solutions extremely popular. Now, a wireless camera joins their surveillance line card, and I can say that I’m impressed.

The CC400W joins the Synology camera lineup as their first Wi-Fi-connected CCTV camera. It’s an outdoor-rated 4 MP camera in a cube form factor, with max resolution of 2560×1440 @ 30 FPS. The CC400W is USB-powered, and you can record to microSD when the link back to your DiskSstation or Synology NVR is out. Complete hardware specs are here. Synology calls it AI-enabled

I have been putting the camera through it’s paces in a number of scenarios. It adopts to the Surveillance Station fantastically quickly, and has been a very good dual-band wireless client on Wi-Fi networks built from Meraki, Mist, and Ubiquiti. I run a DS1618+ DiskStation, with a mix of Synology and third-party cameras in the Surveillance Station package. It may have taken 90 seconds if that to get the new CC400W onto the WLAN and adopted by Surveillance Station.

Even if you don’t do any of the fancy stuff, the new camera is quite nice in it’s imaging in both day and night scenarios.

I found all images in the various lighting scenarios to be at least very good, and usually great. Night vision in my environment was more effective inside than out, but I have a lot of ground lighting in the vicinity to torture cameras with. For the price point and technology involved, the digital zoom performance is quite acceptable.

One area where Synology shines in it’s approach is in ease of configuring advanced settings- like people and motion detection and geofencing for intrusion detection:

These settings are the “AI-enabled” part of Synology’s video magic. If I settle on a permanent location for the CC400W then I will enable detection and set up zones as applicable. Right now I’m still testing various capabilities as I relocate the wireless camera around the different buildings on my property.

There is a lot to appreciate with the Synology CC400W. It really is a nice addition to the Synology surveillance video environment, and I may even end up paring this with a solar powered battery pack at some point where I don’t have an AC outlet available.

Let’s close this out with how it looks in the DS Cam companion app.

I was hanging out at Eagle Creek Reservoir near Indianapolis, doing some birding. I had my beloved Canon 90D set up with a big lens and I was waiting for anything interesting to fly over as I stood on the deck looking out over the water. Out of nowhere this huge clap of thunder sounded, then the sky opened up with a hellacious downpour. I headed into the nature center building fast to get out of it, along with maybe half a dozen other people.

As I walked past the front desk, I noticed an older lady kinda staring at me, like maybe I did something wrong. I gave a polite how are you? and then things got weird.

“I recognize you”, she said. “You wrote that book.”

I’ve written a handful of books, and she must have noticed my confusion before I could ask her which book she was talking about.

“You wrote that book about Wi-Fi. That Wi-Fi XXV book… You’re Wirednot aren’t you? I recognize you from the back cover.”

This was a bit surreal, given the odd weather and the fact that she looked very un-technical in her park uniform handing out pamphlets and maps. I didn’t know what to say, so I just acknowledged that she had the right person and waited for her to continue. In my wildest imagination, I couldn’t predict what came next.

“I’m just here on work release. Got mixed up with some bad peyote when I was setting up the wireless network for a heavy metal festival up in Muncie. Evidently I stole a forklift and trashed the local Cracker Barrel. Whatever… I read Wi-Fi XXV when I was in the joint.”

I asked her what she thought of it.

“I gotta say, I felt like you were telling MY OWN story after all these years of doing Wi-Fi. Crazy client-side stuff, goofy crap from the vendors… over the top promises of fantasy features with each new standard. Yet Wi-Fi itself is awesome. I didn’t feel like I was ALONE in prison when I was reading XXV.”

I thanked her for the kind words and asked her how long she had been in jail. She said she really had no idea because of the peyote.

“That was some bad Devil’s Root, boy. I was trippin’ bad. Anyhow, like you I was in the military before I got into Wi-Fi. I was a door gunner on helicopters, when I wasn’t in confinement somewhere for kickin’ someone’s ass. I kinda got a bit of rage, I guess.”

This lady could have written her own book, was all I could think.

“It was good seeing that a lot of things that always bothered me about the way Wi-Fi evolved also ticked you off. Misery loves company, eh? But it’s been an interesting run for sure. And you give some good guidance on a bunch of stuff. Hey, I gotta go go clean the crappers before Fran calls my parole officer again… see you later, Wirednot- you keep them jigabits flying…”

Then she was gone, off towards the restrooms with a toilet brush in her hand. The rain had stopped, so I headed back out to see the birds.

Available here.