One of the highlights of AirMagnet's Enterprise 7.0 software is its support for new wireless sensors that can monitor and analyze the radio frequency (RF) spectrum for interference by non-Wi-Fi devices such as cordless phones and Bluetooth devices.

"Traditional sensors capture wireless packets out of the air and do a stateful analysis of those packets" to identify potential problems, said Wade Williamson, product manager at AirMagnet. "What's new here with our sensors is it gives you a regular Wi-Fi analysis -- plus it gives you an analysis of what's going on at Layer 1."

The changes are designed to help companies more quickly identify potential WLAN performance issues, he said.

AirMagnet's new product is among the first in the industry to combine Wi-Fi protocol analysis with spectral analysis, said Craig Mathias, an analyst at Farpoint Group in Ashland, Mass.

Though there's not a "huge need" yet for this capability in traditional enterprise settings, it can be very useful in certain environments, he said.