The late Cyrus Sulzberger, publisher of The New York Times, titled his autobiography A Long Row of Candles. The author of the history of the wireless age may want to call his book A Long Row of Acronyms. There is another one yet: Symbol Technologies is gearing up to launch its Wi-NG (for Wireless Next Generation) platform. The new radio frequency switches planned will consolidate technologies such as 802.11, 802.16, passive RFID, mesh networks, EV-DO and HSDPA. "This is a long term strategy for Symbol for the next 12 months," said Chris McGugan, the company's senior director of marketing. The point is to allow companies to start with a WiFi-based WLAN and expand from there to new technologies.

The first product in the Wi-NG series will be the WS5100 Wireless Switch. It will be enabled with Layer 3 roaming and the ability to adopt RFID readers. The switch can be coupled with the AP-5131 mesh AP the company announced last year, and the APs can be deployed without a switch. "The mesh is standalone today, but is part of the architecture for Wi-NG," McGugan said. "If customers want that mesh to be switch controlled, they have that option." Security company AirDefense is a partner in the new Wi-NG architecture, and it integrates its wireless intrusion protection systems into the new offering. Symbol APs will serve as the sensors for detecting and preventing intruders such as unauthorized clients or rogue APs. Wi-NG is built on Linux.

For more on Symbol's Wi-NG:
- see this TMCnet report