A host of wireless vulnerabilities have been patched in several Cisco devices, the company revealed Thursday in two separate advisories. The first exists within its Wireless Control System, and works in conjunction with Cisco Aironet Lightweight Access Points, Cisco Wireless LAN Controllers, and the Cisco Wireless Location Appliance, it said in an advisory. Among the risks are information disclosure, privilege escalation, and unauthorized access, it said in the advisory.

The second fix addresses multiple problems in Cisco's Wireless LAN Controllers and Lightweight Access Points. There an attacker could cause a denial-of-service, disclose private information, change access control lists, or gain full control of the network. Those owning either product are urged to apply the patches immediately, Cisco says.

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EarthLink has begun a beta test of a phone that will use its municipal Wi-Fi network as well as a consumer's home network to both place and receive calls. The first tests will occur on the company's network in Anaheim.

Accton Technology has been selected to manufacture the phones, which will be made available to select beta testers in the city. Those in the region could sign up for the beta by calling 1-800-352-7650, the company said.

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802.11n wireless networking came closer to becoming an actual standard on Tuesday, as the IEEE said that 'Draft 2.0' received more than the required 75 percent supermajority required for the process to move forward.

Nearly 84 percent of those eligible to vote approved of the draft. While the vote does not mean the fight over the 802.11n standard is over, it does show all involved are beginning to meet eye-to-eye when it comes to the actual technical standards within the draft.

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EarthLink said Wednesday that it had reached a deal with the city of Corpus Christi, Texas that would open up its preexisting Wi-Fi network for public use. Currently city workers and public safety officials use the network, but after EarthLink takes ownership, it will be optimized for public use and offered at around $20 USD per month.

Like other Wi-Fi deployments by the company, the network would be opened up to third parties allowing them to provide their own wireless services. "The [EarthLink] relationship will enable us to provide the Corpus Christi community with competitive commercial Internet services, give ISPs an equal opportunity to participate, and ensure a return on the City's current and ongoing network investment," city manager George "Skip" Noe said.

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Apple has begun offering a $1.99 USD software patch that would enable use of 802.11n wireless networking on select Intel-based Mac models. However, the update has not come without controversy.

The Cupertino company claims that it had to offer the capabilities in this manner due to finance laws, commonly referred to as GAAP, which they say require a charge for significant feature enhancements. But many Wall Street analysts have said that is not the case.

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Apple has fixed a vulnerability in its AirPort product that was disclosed late last year as part of the "Month of Kernel Bugs" program. An attacker would be able to compromise a Mac by sending specially crafted data to it over a wireless network, causing the system to crash, according to an Apple alert. The issue affected Intel Core Duo versions of its Mac Mini, MacBook and MacBook Pro lines.

"This update addresses the issue by performing additional validation of wireless frames," the company said in the advisory. The update will be automatically delivered via the Software Update feature of Mac OS X, or can be downloaded through the Apple software download site.

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EarthLink said Thursday that it was in the process of negotiating a contract with its hometown of Atlanta that would allow it to build, own, and operate a municipal wireless network there. The deal would be EarthLink's eighth in a major city. So far, it has operational networks in Philadelphia, New Orleans, Milpitas and Anaheim, Calif. Construction is underway in Alexandria, Va., and Pasadena, Calif., and a network is near approval in San Francisco.

The rest of the Atlanta network's specification would be similar to that of its other networks. 1Mbps connection speeds would be provided for $18 per month, with discounted rates available to low-income households. The network would also be open access, which means competing companies would be permitted to offer their own services over the same signal.

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Last Friday, in a vote even some veteran observers of the networking industry weren't expecting, members of the IEEE 802.11 Working Group voted unanimously -- 100-0, with five abstentions -- to advance what's currently being called Draft 1.1 of the 802.11n high-speed WiFi standard. A subsequent vote in the spring could move the draft to 2.0 status, even though as recently as last November, the ratification of Draft 1.06 left behind, by one official count, 370 outstanding catalogued technical issues for further discussion.

With so many issues on the table, what's expected to be the final ratification of a Draft 3.0 standard, in which those issues are resolved, is tentatively scheduled for October 2008, according to a report in InfoWorld. The WiFi industry can't wait that long, and is apparently allowing last week's vote to serve as the starting gun for a new wave of "Draft-N" equipment.

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After being selected to power Philadelphia's metropolitan Wi-Fi network some 15 months ago, EarthLink on Thursday made the first steps towards offering service by announcing it would allow for free access in the 15-square mile proof of concept area through January 21.

The area extends from the Schuylkill River to the west to the Delaware River to the east, and Center City and Old City to the south and Montgomery Avenue and the Kensington areas to the north. Speeds of up to 1 Mbps would be available.

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Vonage has struck an agreement with EarthLink, which would allow it to resell the company's wireless Internet service in cities where the ISP controls the Wi-Fi network. Broadband service would then be sold under the Vonage name, the company said Monday.

Internet service would be bundled with Vonage's traditional business, VoIP. No launch date has been set for the new service, or what price it would sell at. However, it indicates a willingness by the company to expand its business outward to continue growth.

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After winning the contract to build a wireless network in New Orleans, EarthLink said Thursday it had officially launched services in the Crescent City. A slower free tier would be made available while the city rebuilds, plus a faster, fee-based service.

The Wi-Fi service was first announced and launched in November of last year in the French Quarter and Central Business District. Mayor Ray Nagin said its purpose was to provide Internet access to citizens while the heavily damaged telecommunications network was repaired.

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Microsoft and MetroFi announced a partnership Wednesday to blanket the city of Portland, Ore. with free wireless Internet access. The service would be advertiser supported, and make use of the Redmond company's adCenter platform to attract advertisers and help target their ads.

Service would be initially launched in Pioneer Courthouse Square later this year. When the project is completed, about 95 percent of the city would have Wi-Fi access. Speeds of 1Mbps downstream and 256Kbps upstream would be provided.

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Last May’s failure of the IEEE to ratify a high-bandwidth wireless networking standard for 802.11n left the networking market fractured. While some companies are plowing ahead with production of “pre-N” equipment, despite disillusionment among buyers in all market segments, others are trying to eek out all the bandwidth they can get from the latest standard there is, 802.11g.

To that end, Broadcom may have found pay dirt: This morning, the company announced it has miniaturized its 11g chipsets for use in very, very small networking devices. The goal is to empower not only handsets but smaller components still, with the capability to receive 54 Mbps – which is as high as wireless networking is going to get prior to 11n (135 Mbps) ever being adopted.

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Home network equipment maker D-Link entered the mobile phone market Tuesday, introducing a new line of "V-CLICK" handsets that work with both traditional GSM operators as well as Wi-Fi networks. Users can switch between the technologies with a click of a button.

As wireless hotspots become more ubiquitous, phone manufacturers have turned to building handsets that are able to utilize Internet connectivity for making calls over VoIP. The idea is that such calls are cheaper than traditional cellular calling, especially when dialing internationally. In addition, Wi-Fi coverage could help areas where cellular signals are limited or non-existent.

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Fresh off a major spectrum grab at the recent wireless frequency auction, T-Mobile USA plans to step up efforts to gain new customers and separate itself from its competition. The changes will also include the exit of Catherine Zeta-Jones as T-Mobile's spokeswoman, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

The nation's fourth biggest wireless carrier will introduce new phones as early as next month that can use Wi-Fi hotspots in order to make phone calls. Sources have told BetaNews that the company had been testing the phones in the Oregon/Washington area since mid-summer, and although buggy at first, the service had generally worked well.

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