Cisco cites wireless LAN potentials

When the going gets tough, information technology can still get going. That’s the hope of IT vendors like Cisco Systems Phils., which tries to stay optimistic despite the marked drop in the IT spending of local companies during these precarious times. 

Raymond Huang, managing director of the local Cisco office, says the prevailing hard times call for more innovative IT solutions like wireless local area network (WLAN), which has the potential to create new growth markets and encourage infrastructure build-up. 

"The Philippines is not far behind in the adoption of technologies. We should innovate and create hot spots for wireless LAN as well as in the enterprise space where wireless technology presents a big opportunity," Huang says. 

A hot spot is a specific geographic location in which an access point provides public wireless broadband network services to mobile visitors through a WLAN.

Hot spots are often located in heavily populated places such as airports, train stations, libraries, marinas, convention centers and hotels. They typically have a short range of access. 

In the country, the first publicly available wireless hot spot called BLiNK was made available last July by ePLDT, the communications and technology arm of the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. The pilot run of BLiNK, which runs on Cisco Mobile Office solutions, is in cooperation with a local coffee company, Figaro, whose outlets are equipped with Cisco Aironet Wireless LAN access points. Using a prepaid card from ePLDT BLiNK, Figaro clients can access the Internet using their laptops or any Windows CE-based personal digital assistants that are wireless network-ready and have a wireless LAN card (802.11b). 

Huang notes that for more services like BLiNK to happen, the country must continue to build its infrastructure. And though new technologies are not adopted as fast as they are developed, he counts on those companies that are driven by productivity to invest what they have held back in the past months for the latest technologies. 

"IT spending has been cut back. People want to hold on to their cash and cut their operating expenses so the business environment remains challenging. Fundamentally, the economy is sound but consumers are not spending as much as they should," says Huang. 

Not knowing when exactly the economic crisis will bottom out, the IT vendor community can only wait for recovery soon. In the meantime, Cisco extends its so-called Cisco Capital leasing program to enterprises that don’t want to make big cash outlay for their IT projects. With this funding, enterprises should find it easier to acquire new technologies such as the soon-to-be-released Cisco AccessPoint 80 1200, a 5GHz frequency laptop and WLAN card at 54 Mbps designed to increase the capacity for enterprises and hot spots. – Alma Buelva