April 22, 2009--The United States Patent Office has awarded Trapeze Networks two wireless networking patents designed to enhance its NonStop Wireless technologies, and that will allow organizations to deploy and manage access points more easily and at lower costs.
NonStop Wireless technology allows for non-stop operation in-service upgrades and hitless failover while simplifying redundancy configuration. According to Trapeze, the technology "dramatically reduces capital equipment and ongoing IT operational costs associated with building, maintaining, and growing high-availability resilient wireless LANs."
The "System and Method for Distributing Keys in a Wireless Network" (U.S. Patent 7,529,925) is a foundational patent that relates to improvements in roaming performance. This invention covers the fundamental operations of pairwise master key (PMK) caching, the way to maintain security when clients roam from one access point to another.
The invention allows the distribution of key information about client devices between access points such that clients can avoid re-negotiation of new keys with new access points as they physically move in a wireless network. According to Trapeze, this results in "uninterrupted wireless service and superior quality of connection." Most of today's enterprise class wireless LANs that support high-quality voice over IP services require PMK caching features in order to provide rapid roaming between access points and eliminating dropped calls.
"Power-Aware Multi-Circuit System and Method" (U.S. Patent 7,525,215) is an invention that allows access points to use one or more types of power sources (IEEE 802.1at, IEEE 802.3af, or proprietary PoE) and adjust the functionality of the access point based on the level of power available to it. Trapeze says this invention simplifies installation and operation of access points on existing networks and allows businesses to entirely avoid installing expensive additional power mains, new PoE sourcing devices, and upgrading their wiring closets to support the wireless network.
On the Web: www.trapezenetworks.com