On the heels of their acquisition of WiFi intrusion detection firm AirDefense last month, Motorola has updated its multiradio, multiband enterprise access points to allow one radio to be dedicated to bad players on and near the local network. Motorola offers this feature in its AP-5131 (a/b/g, two radios) and AP-7131 (a/b/g/n, three radios). AirDefense software is required.

Wireless intrusion detection looks for unauthorized access points and clients, along with a host of identifiable bad behavior by devices not connected to the network. Most systems require either that access points time slice, sneaking in scans while also serving clients, or that an overlay of intrusion-only access points are installed.

Typically, you need substantially fewer intrusion detectors than regular radios because the detectors are attempting to listen very closely rather than maximize a network's throughput. In a Motorola-deployed network, this might mean one out of each several APs would turn over a radio to intrusion detector, rather than anything approaching one radio in each AP.

Another enterprise vendor, Xirrus, which uses massive arrays of radios, builds in a dedicated intrusion sensor that's designed for global use, and can detect signals using channels that are both legal and illegal for use in a particular regulatory domain.

Motorola had a three-year history of working with AirDefense prior to its purchase, making it less of a surprise that the company was able to update its hardware so rapidly. Existing owners of either enterprise AP can apply a software update to gain the feature.