The first generation of WiFiⁱ deployments involved simply replacing cables with wireless access. When a group, organization, or household sets up wireless access using a single wireless access pointⁱ, it instantly receives a return on investment (ROI), typically saving at least an order of magnitude more than its cost in the labor charges of installing wire. Multiply this savings by potentially thousands of users, and it is easy to understand why access points-known as "hot spots"- are cropping up everywhere, including in cafés, single dwelling residences, and meeting rooms.

The next generation of WiFi deployments involves creating "hot zones" in apartment complexes, large campuses, and cities. The goal of these deployments is to provide high-speed, wireless access cost effectively, or to provide this access in places where traditional wired broadband access is not available. In order to deploy WiFi in these situations with the same realized ROI, the access points need to be able to communicate with each other to share configuration information, available routes, and performance metrics.

This is where the Xwire router comes in. Fully compliant with IEEEⁱ 802.11g and 802.11bⁱ standards, the Xwire router uses Xwire access points with built-in Internet gateway capability. The router includes state-of-the-art software to allow routers to communicate with each other, share and balance bandwidth, and support network management services. This technology gives your office, department, or family the ability to share a broadband modem and one ISPⁱ account so that different users in different rooms can enjoy simultaneously connections, without wires.

Figure 1-1: Example of network that uses the Xwire router.