Cisco launches roaming router

The firm is initially targeting its Mobile Networks technology at specific sectors such as the emergency services. But it sees no reason why commercial travelers should not roam across service provider networks and send email, or surf the Internet via satellite, radio or GPRS/GSM-enabled routers carried in various forms of transport.

"You can have multiple users using the same device, and apply any traffic and quality of service prioritization that you wish to have. You could classify all traffic coming from business class as high priority, and that from economy as low priority for instance," said Massimo Lucchina, engineering manager at Cisco's research and development centre.

Instead of using access control and authentication processes at the physical layer in the radio link, mobile IP performs control and authentication at the IP level, which makes the handover process between ISPs transparent, according to Lucchina. And the client devices accessing the routers do not need to have static IP addresses. This allows greater ease of use, said Lucchina. "You can move out of France into the UK or anywhere and lose radio but not IP connectivity, which means you can re-establish a different link using another provider," he explained.