December 12, 2002 -- Can you imagine how bulky and heavy your wireless PDA would be with a second WiFi card loaded into your CF slot or what having two network cards would do to your battery life? Unfortunately for some, this may be what they have to live with soon. As PDA manufacturers jump on the wireless bandwagon, more people are buying the latest and greatest PDAs now complete with integrated WiFi (802.11b); but are your new $700 PDA's networking capabilities already obsolete?

IEEE, the organization responsible for the 802.11b wireless protocol, has found their way into many people's hearts by providing the standard for today's WiFi (Wireless Fidelity) networking. WiFi has become so popular that several models in the latest line of PDA models come with standard issue integrated 802.11b. As hardware manufacturers continue to play the game of planned obsolescence, however, you might want to think twice before spending that $700 on one of these units.

In 2001, IEEE began development of a protocol called 802.1x. 802.1x runs on top of 802.11 and provides port-based authentication services to existing wireless networks allowing for secure password authentication, dynamic WEP keys, even VPN capabilities. 802.1x uses a protocol called 'EAP' short for Enhanced Authentication Protocol. As of December 2002, many corporations (including Microsoft) and colleges (including MIT and Georgia College & State University) have implemented the 802.1x protocol on top of their existing 802.11 wireless infrastructure to secure their wireless networks.

You might think, "Great, wireless is finally getting more secure!" The catch is that 802.1x isn't merely a software protocol. In order to log onto a wireless network using 802.1x, you must have an 802.1x compatible wireless card, a feature that we haven't found on any of this year's WiFi PDAs. While PCMCIA cards for laptops supporting 802.1x are in no short supply, 802.1x won't make its way into the PDA world until January 2003, when two software manufacturers (Funk Software and Meetinghouse Data Communications) release their versions of 802.1x clients for PocketPC to complement the new 802.1x compatible CF (Compact Flash) cards to hit the market. This is all scheduled around Microsoft's latest release of the PocketPC operating system designed to include 802.1x support. Nevertheless, PDA manufacturers continue to produce PDAs with integrated WiFi knowing full well that by this time next year, owners of these PDAs will not be able to log onto most corporate or college wireless networks.

Ed Boyd, the technical director for Georgia College & State University, had the displeasure of making the hardware incompatibility issues a reality to his campus' students. "Their parents would buy them a new wireless card and then they'd come [to the campus] and it wouldn't work. I'd sit down with them and install the software right in front of them just to show them."

While raw 802.11b wireless will still be the affordable standard for home networks, there is little doubt that 802.1x's secure authentication features will be implemented just about everywhere else. Having been developed by IEEE, the same organization that created the 802.11b standard, the protocol has already been widely accepted by the engineering community. Companies such as Cisco and 3Com have already embraced 802.1x and designed new routers and networking hardware to depend on it. Microsoft's Windows XP Operating System utilizes 802.1x to provide 'Network Login' capabilities on secure infrastructures. 802.1x has already worked its way into many corporation and campus settings and is continuing to grow to be just as popular as 802.11 itself.

Unfortunately due to the name IEEE has given this protocol, which in my opinion was a big mistake, many people misunderstand the term 802.1x thinking that the 'x' is a wildcard for any 802.11b compatible card. Manufacturers naturally aren't going to highlight their lack of 802.1x support, as their job is to push PDAs. This has left the consumer with virtually no knowledge of the importance of 802.1x support.

So what should you do? If you are thinking about buying that WiFi PDA for you or a loved one for Christmas, you'd better either wait until the manufacturers integrate 802.1x support or go get the next model down (without integrated WiFi) and instead purchase a Compact Flash wireless card. This way, you'll only end up purchasing a new wireless card and not a new PDA next year. Otherwise, plan on running a second network card to get on these types of networks. Two cards means bulkier, heavier, and more drain on your battery, and may end up turning your Christmas present into a used necktie.

Jonathan A. Zdziarski is president of Atlanta-based Network Dweebs Corporation that provides real-time messaging solutions, open-source tools, and professional software design services. His company is also working on a freeware OpenNAP (napster) client for Pocket PC (see screenshots of OpenNAPCE) and other corporate Pocket PC software tools.