LAS VEGAS -- Wireless LAN vendors unveiled an array of software improvements to their core systems software at this week’s Interop Las Vegas trade show.

Several of the improvements are around location-tracking technologies. In general, the new software reflects the intent to make WLAN a more integral part of the corporate network infrastructures, and to make it a foundation for new network-based services, such as locating and tracking assets, wireless VoIP, and bridging between wireless VoIP and cellular networks.

Among the announcements:

•  Aruba has released new code for its mobile access point, adding a built-in firewall and split tunneling to route data traffic locally to other wireless clients.

•  Bluesocket’s new software image for its controller family creates for the first time a consistent software platform for that product line.

•  Cisco adds code and a new application that make it possible for network administrators to manage groups of wireless controllers in very large enterprise WLANs.

•  Meru, Siemens and Motorola have added software-based location tracking capabilities to their WLANs; while WhereNet released a new wireless tracking tag that can use two wireless technologies: 802.11 (Wi-Fi) or ISO 24730 RFID.

•  NextHop Technologies has released a version of its Wi-Fi software (for controllers and access points) that makers of PBXs, wireless routers, and other network gear can use to add 802.11 data and control capabilities to “anything with a CPU and memory.”

Aruba announced its Mobile Access Point (MAP) last year as a portable access point that could be used from a hotel, coffee shop or home network to create an encrypted tunnel back to the corporate LAN. The new software adds to the MAP: 1) a stateful firewall, that can enforce corporate authentication and network access control policies for the remote user. It can also perform what Aruba calls “split tunneling” that switches traffic to a local wireless printer or another laptop without going through a central Aruba controller. The MAP software ships in July.

Aruba also demonstrated at Interop a feature that lets the Aruba wireless controller bridge a voice call from the WLAN to a cellular net on its own, instead of handing off that bridging task off to the corporate IP PBX. The Aruba controller works on one side with a dual-mode (Wi-Fi and cellular) mobile phone making a call over a Wi-Fi connection, and on the other with a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) server that’s part of an IP PBX, and a SIP gateway to the public switched telephone network (PSTN). The PBX is used for signaling and call control, but the controller and gateway handle in effect the mechanics of the actual call.