Roaming Standard Goes Slow

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc. (IEEE) is unlikely to establish a new Task Group to handle voice-over-WLAN (VOWLAN) roaming issues at this week's meeting in Vancouver, according to a source familiar with the matter.

As Unstrung first reported on Monday, SpectraLink Corp. is pushing for the IEEE to make the Study Group that is looking into improving the handoff times between access points using new security protocols into an 802.11 Task Group so that it can define an official fast, secure roaming standard (see SpectraLink Seeks New Standard).

SpectraLink is trying to fast-track this standard to ensure that its handsets and software work well on third-party 802.11 access points.

The IEEE Fast, Secure Roaming Study Group, which was established last year and is chaired by Symbol engineer Clint Chaplin, is already looking at this problem and has presented an outline of the problems to the venerable industry body. But our source doesn't expect that the IEEE will take the next step and vote on establishing a Task Group until March.

We asked IEEE spokesman Brian Matthews what the status of the group is, but he cannot comment until the meeting is over on Friday.

— Dan Jones, Slow, Insecure, Motionless Editor, Unstrung