IIUM Wireless : No. 1 Benchmark for Secure Wireless Depoyment in Malaysia ?

Unofficially, IIUM Wireless has become a reference model by other IPTA in Malaysia for campus wide wireless deployment. This rumours has been talked among the system integrators and vendors in Malaysia. FYI, UM has visited us for discussion and sharing experience which are related to wifi deployment. I have mentioned it  in my previous post. Click here.

IIUM has deployed a secured wireless infrastructure which is based on role-based identity authentication. IIUM is the first organization deploying this kind of authentication method in Malaysian. Thanks to Dr. Unggul for his experties and concern on wireless security issues in the beginning of design stage of wireless implementation. The facts can be obtained from this link. Click here.

Installing Wireshark

During my Aruba SWDI Training in KL, my instructor Mr. Kevin Hamilton has teached us a little bit about network security analyst’s toolkit using Wireshark. Immediately after the training session, I try to find a way where to got this analyzer (freedownload if possible) and how to install it.

According to the security expert in the University of Notre Dame, Mike Chapple… he said, Installing Wireshark is a piece of cake. Binary versions can be downloaded for Windows or Macintosh OS X. Wireshark is also available through the standard software distribution systems for most flavors of Unix/Linux, and the source code is also available for installation on other operating systems.

The Wireshark development team built the Windows version on top of the WinPcap packet capture library. Those running Windows must install WinPcap if they haven’t already. One word of caution: If you’re running an outdated version of WinPcap, remove it manually through the “Add/Remove Programs” control panel before running the Wireshark installer.

The installation process uses a familiar wizard-based sequence that only asks two significant questions: whether you want to install WinPcap and whether you want to start the WinPcap Netgroup Packet Filter (NPF) service at startup. Selecting the latter option allows users without administrator privileges to capture packets. If you don’t start this service, only administrators will be able to run Wireshark.

Global Wireless Broadband will be the next mobile generation for IIUM Community

As we can see our mobile service today has equipped with the latest technology embodied. Application like MMS, email , mobile web browser (firefox), video call, Fixed mobile convergence (FMC), mobile extension, could deliver easily via 3G. Everybody could run all of these application as long as they are within 3G coverage. Limited coverage right?…. Well after the GPRS (40kbps) evolve to egde (300kps) , then to 3G (2MBps) , and then HSDPA (36Mbps), the next generation (4G) of mobile network would run at least 300Mbps. Using what ?…They call it as Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMax).

Since the first idea, WiMAX has the potential to replace a number of existing telecommunications infrastructures. In a fixed wireless configuration it can replace the telephone company’s copper wire networks, the cable TV’s coaxial cable infrastructure while offering Internet Service Provider (ISP) services. In its mobile variant, WiMAX has the potential to replace cellular networks. But in Telco, we would call it as mobile WiMax. Mobile WiMAX takes the fixed wireless application a step further and enables cell phone-like applications on a much larger scale. For example, mobile WiMAX enables streaming video to be broadcast from a speeding police or other emergency vehicle at over 70 MPH. It potentially replaces cell phones and mobile data offerings from cell phone operators such as EvDo, EvDv and HSDPA. In addition to being the final leg in a quadruple play, it offers superior building penetration and improved security measures over fixed WiMAX. Mobile WiMAX will be very valuable for emerging services such as mobile TV and gaming.

The technologies used to build this huge trunk highway are Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing (OFDM) and multiple input & Mulitple output (MIMO). OFDM & MIMO have emerged as the technologies of choice to satisfy this growth, not only for WiMAX (802.16e & 802.16m), but also for 3GPP’s future LTE standard as well as Wi-Fi (802.11n). The combination of OFDM and MIMO is highly scalable and systems based upon it are best positioned to satisfy the headroom requirements for mobile broadband data over the next decade.

Then, how will it give benefit to IIUM environment ? Well.. the fast growth of MIMO technology will enable IIUM to become fully wireless campus territory. With the existing aruba Network environemt , and additional deployment of out-door antennas, which decrease in quantity , but will increase about more than 50% coverage by using MIMO technology, this dream would become true. The existing coverage, which cover only for kulliyyah and admin building, would be expendable to Mahallah area, and also all other coverage with lesser amount of budget.

The other application like video conference, In-house video streaming, or in-house IIUM TV program , which require great bandwidth, will be easily adopted with the existence of great warrior of IIUM mobile WiMax. As for the mobile application, the mobile VoIP (SIP enabled mobile phone) could be used as to greatly lower down the call billing among the IIUM Community. Integration with call routing will also decrease the charge from local to adjacent call and other nation wide call billing. Is it really a great ROI? In fact, yes for long term benefit. The continuous educational program will last forever as the infrastructure has tremendously being develop in advanced for better future people development.