Favril Plots Skinnier APs

A stealthy new startup wants to put enterprise wireless LAN coverage where you need it most -- in your pocket, Unstrung has learnt.

Favril Networks Inc., a closely held startup still operating in stealth mode, wants to go one better than the wireless LAN switch startups with a skinny access point that fits in your pocket, sources tell us.

Building on the personal mobile gateway approach punted by Bluetooth vendors a couple of years ago, the firm is promising ubiquitous coverage through enterprise networks made up of thousands of low-power 802.11 radios (see Meet the Acronym Hunter).

The company is calling the new technology its Personal Access Point Mesh Node Network (PAPMNN).

As Gabriel Brown, Unstrung Insider's chief analyst, pointed out in a recent report on wireless mesh, the economics could now be right for such a wireless LAN system.

"802.11 wireless technology... is favored due to its low-cost and ubiquity," writes Brown (see Gorillas in the Mesh).

But perhaps the most ingenious part of the system is the way the company plans to work around the interference problems that could normally be expected from running so many radios in a confined space.

Instead of leaving site survey work to a network administrator, Favril has developed a dynamic desktop survey tool that will allow the AP wearers to track their own radio transmissions in the office environment.

Favril says that this will allow users to plot a path between their cube and the water cooler before they even get up from their desk and should help to ensure minimal co-channel interference between the newly unwired co-workers.

— Dan Jones, Site Editor, Unstrung