Cisco doubles wireless standards
29 Nov 2011
Under a deal with Cisco Systems, Honeywell is offering a new wireless access point from Cisco within its OneWireless portfolio. The Cisco Aironet 1552S access point, which features an integrated ISA100.11a (wireless standard) radio, is said to provide wireless coverage for both Wi-Fi applications and ISA100.11a field instruments under a single infrastructure.
The addition to Honeywell’s wireless network offers a plant-wide wireless mesh infrastructure capable of supporting advanced applications such as rotating assets, VOIP, and security systems, said Honeywell Process Solutions (HPS).
“This is a strategic move to partner with Cisco, a co-operation for wireless infrastructure in the process environment,” said Diederik Mols, HPS business manager, industrial wireless solutions.
Asked about exclusivity in view of Cisco’s link up with Emerson around the competing IEC 62591 (WirelessHART) standard, four years ago Mols claimed HPS’ rival had needed Cisco as a third party in the area of Wi-Fi: “They just reverted to Cisco. That’s a different animal to what we currently are launching.”
For its part, Emerson has described Cisco was “the right choice for the Wi-Fi piece” of the process industry’s wireless requirements.
“As the leader in high-speed wireless networks, Cisco could be expected to support multiple field networks,” said Bob Karschnia, vice president, wireless, Emerson Process Management. “Emerson has completed [many] installations of Cisco access points since our partnership began, including large scale redundant plant-wide infrastructures.”
Karschnia went on to claim that the new deal with Cisco meant Honeywell was now “changing directions” in the Wi-Fi/wireless arena.
According to Mols, though, the deal provides “a combined module and solution between Cisco and Honeywell. We will sell it, Cisco also, and we will align the development activity. It will not be the case that, next year, there is going to be another [such] platform with Emerson or anybody else. This is a platform for the next decade.”
