Intel digs in over China’s WLAN
p2pnet.net News:- Chipzilla is sticking to its decision not to support the security protocol that’s the bottom line in a trade dispute centering China’s WLAN (wireless LAN) standard.
There’s "No compromise on WAPI as Intel’s Barrett heads to China – Company hopes for an end to impasse over the security protocol," as IDG News Service sums it up here.
Or as the People’s Daily Online put it here, "Intel, says China’s People’s Daily Online, ’strikes up a discordant tune’ which means it, "won’t be able to support China’s newly-issued WAPI security standard."
But, "Outrage at Intel about a Chinese encryption ban being slapped on its products in June this year may well have its genesis in the firm’s inability to properly integrate its Xircom acquisition several years ago," says a report in The Inquirer here.
"The Chinese WLAN standard is similar in many ways to IEEE’s 802.11 wireless networking standard – commonly known as Wireless Fidelity or Wi-Fi – but it has one crucial difference: it uses a different security protocol, called WLAN Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure (WAPI)," says Paul Nikolich, chairman of the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers).
"WAPI is not part of the 802.11 standard, which relies instead on Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP)."
In China, "Liu Jie, spokesperson of Intel’s China Branch, said … Intel is unable to find a program that can support China’s new wireless standard," according to the People’s Daily. "Intel also believes that any standard that is not compatible with the international standard is unlikely to have competitive power.
"This is a major policy change for Intel since China first put forward the wireless standard. Before this the official stand of Intel’s China Branch was that Intel is having active discussions with the Chinese government, the relevant institutions and companies, and is communicating with the government on various issues such as techniques, hoping to further understand the specifications and resolve this problem by June."
But, "Nothing has really changed in our position with regard to WAPI," Intel ceo Craig Barrett is quoted as saying in the IDG story. Barrett was speaking in Taipei on the first stop of an Asian tour that’ll take him to Beijing later this week, says IDG.
"We’ll sell our Centrino mobile technology up until June 1 and hopefully we’ll get this issue resolved before then," Barrett said, adding that the company continues to discuss WAPI with Chinese officials.
The US government has also weighed in on the issue, adds IDG.
"U.S. Secretary of Commerce Donald Evans, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, sent a letter to senior Chinese government officials in March expressing concern over the implementation of China’s WLAN standard and that the move created a dangerous precedent for using standards as a barrier to international trade."
But, says The Inquirer, Intel’s China wi-fi problem could be of its own making.
" … behind the scenes, it appears technical problems and an inability to pull different resources together could be at the root of the problem," it states..
"That’s according to sources at Intel who tell the INQUIRER how the firm ended up not knowing what to do with an excellent set of wireless products it bought when it bought the company. The chip giant licensed Symbol technology for a considerable sum of money, and persuaded developers at Intel Haifa to work on silicon. It also bought in OFDM technology from the Israeli company Envara, which it recently bought.
"Intel still has a problem matching its firmware with products, and we understand that this is one of the main reasons why the firm has lagged behind the other wi-fi players in the field for so long.
"It’s entirely possible that this firmware problem is also the reason why Intel was unable, in short order, to meet the Chinese encryption standard."
