A low cost, low power, cordless networking solution for handheld devices.

BlueSky is an on going project in the networking department at Thomas J. Watson Research Center. We are building a low cost, low power, wireless communication solution for handheld devices. You can plug-in our current prototype into the serial port of your Workpad and access the web over the wireless link. The access to wired networking resources is provided using a BlueSky access point which acts as a layer2/3 bridge between Ethernet & wireless medium. Once you are connected, you can browse the web, run host-sync, print documents, send faxes, or whatever else you may want to do. 

We are also implementing a mobility/roaming solution that will enable users to roam between access points without dropping active connections. The nice thing about the solution is that no new software or communication stack upgrades are needed. Handheld devices view the BlueSky wireless attachment as a null modem and use the existing dialup and PPP software to connect to the network. Our roaming enhancements to PPP are implemented in the PPP server, the access point, and the BlueSky attachment. The added functionality is completely transparent to the end device.