A few years back, an increasing number of organisations in Singapore began wide deployments of WLAN. They included enterprise-level organisations as well as Wireless LAN Internet Service Providers (WISP). WLAN usage was expected to proliferate in offices, universities and homes, as well as in public areas, such as airports, hotels and restaurants.
Though WLAN was the initial driver for the widespread use of the systems based on the IEEE802.11 standard, there had been several drawbacks with WLAN. They were attributed to its deficiency in throughput, security, quality of service (QoS) and roaming capabilities. The Next Generation Wireless Local Area Network (NGWLAN), however, is characterised by higher throughput with better security features, better mobility support and higher QoS. These features, supported by open standards, would address many of WLAN's limitations.
In May 2002, the Technology Group of IDA engaged the GPS centre of Nanyang Technological University (NTU) of Singapore and RFNet Technologies Pte Ltd for the technical trial of NGWLAN. The trial took place over a period of six months at the NTU campus. The objectives of the trial was to provide a test bed to evaluate the NGWLAN technology, to identify issues, challenges and ways of NGWLAN deployment, as well as to create awareness and provide deployment recommendations.
In turn, the recommendations from the project have provided insights and best practices for decision-makers, IT developers and service providers, so as to ensure that Singapore capitalises on the potentially empowering benefits of the NGWLAN technology.
For any enquiries/feedback, please email us at tecg@ida.gov.sg.