Cognio announced additions and enhancements to its line of Spectrum Expert spectrum management platforms to support the rollout of new services such as wireless VoIP, incorporated into its general availability release of Spectrum Expert. With Spectrum Expert, IT managers have the ability to create detailed device vs. channel charts that quickly show the impact of specific devices on each Wi-Fi channel and how they are impacting channel and overall network performance. With this knowledge, IT managers can elect to remove, move, shield or replace specific devices to minimize impact and maximize Wi-Fi network performance.

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Cognio has also added the ability for wireless technicians to perform a full spectrum capture at remote sites that can be saved for later review and analysis or transmitted via the wireless network back to headquarters for real-time analysis. This enables IT managers to create a baseline and compare spectrum changes over time.

Many enterprises are adding IP voice to their WLANs to improve the productivity of their employees. However, putting these "real-time" services onto the Wi-Fi network is bringing new challenges for enterprise IT managers. Unlike wired networks, the Wi-Fi environment changes dynamically, bandwidth is shared, and it is prone to interference from other devices in the 2.4 GHz junk band. To make real-time wireless applications work, enterprises need to understand the spectrum environment in which Wi-Fi operates, as well as what the fingerprint of the spectrum is. This is a challenge given the unlicensed nature of 802.11-based WLANs and the rapid increase in devices such as Bluetooth headsets, cellular phones and PDAs. Spectrum Expert 2.0 is available and lists at $3,995. The technology in Spectrum Expert is also available in other products from OEM vendors.