Cognio Gives RFID a Clear Read

Filed in archive Wireless on February 20, 2006

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Cognio's products help troubleshoot wireless network problems such as interference, and also help monitor performance.

Cognio recently announced additions and enhancements to its line of innovative Spectrum Expert spectrum management platforms, to deal with RFID.

Cognio has added an RFID version of its Spectrum Expert spectrum analysis solution, as well as updated its popular ISMS Mobile to version 2.0, renaming the product Spectrum Expert for WiFi. Expanded functionality in the WiFi product includes support for WiFi access points, playback and capture of spectrum traces, and an improved, easier-to-use user interface.

The unlicensed bands are becoming increasingly congested as more devices, and types of devices, are now available and in use. Wireless networks are also proliferating at a staggering rate, with the leading networks leveraging the unlicensed band for RFID and WiFi. This makes managing these networks and devices challenging for wireless IT managers as they operate in the most difficult spectrum to control -- the unlicensed spectrum, where these networks must compete for resources with other devices that use these frequencies.

To combat the growing problem, network professionals need tools that can quickly troubleshoot the physical layer. For RFID networks, the need is to be able to determine whether there are interfering devices and to test to verify the power transmitting from RFID readers as either can significantly undermine network availability and reliability.

For WiFi, the problem is to ensure that connectivity problems are not being caused by physical layer problems. In both cases, Spectrum Expert solves these problems by enabling wireless IT manager to identify and locate interfering devices quickly before they can bring down or impact the network.

"Troubleshooting the physical layer of a wireless network should be a 30 second process," said Thomas McPherson, president and CEO of Cognio. "In both RFID and WiFi, the tools to do this were sorely lacking. Spectrum Expert fills a void in the spectrum analysis market by delivering tools that anyone can use to quickly solve their spectrum problems."

Spectrum Expert provides capabilities far beyond traditional spectrum analyzers.
Spectrum Expert is the first system to use cognitive analysis to accurately read the spectrum and list the devices transmitting. This makes spectrum management easier, and is especially helpful in congested environments. In addition, Spectrum Expert is the only solution that can lock onto and track down non-802.11 devices such as cordless phones.

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