Default SSID?

darrenj · ‎01-25-2006

This is more a question born out of curiosity. Why did Cisco choose 'tsunami' as the default SSID on the vast majority of their products? Is there a reason behind this?

fredn · ‎01-26-2006

Yes there is a reason (and a story) so I'm glad you asked. As you may be aware, Cisco purchased a wireless company called Aironet (of which I was an original employee of). Aironet was a company called Telesystems in Canada and at the time (years ago) when I was at Telxon we purchased Telesystems and moved it to Akron Ohio renaming it to Aironet. At the time of the rename, the Aironet marketing folks decided to create a logo that looks much like a storm or tornado (you can see it at this URL) http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/wireless/air_legc/accesspt/3500eug.pdf

This logo was picked because at the time we thought we would take the wireless market by storm (which we did) ... so in keeping with the "storm" approach, the SSID names "tsunami" and "typhoon" were selected. Different names were used to keep them separate. By the way many of those original "Telesystems" engineers are still around today and designed many of the first "repeaters" and mesh like technology that we use today. Thanks again for the question (and memories)... Fred

darrenj · ‎01-27-2006

That is awesome Fred! It always seems like there is a story behind 'names' - especially in networking. The one that instantly springs to mind is Cisco from San Francisco......

Well, Aironet certainly took the wireless market by storm thats for sure. Nearly every time I've configured a WLAN, I've asked the engineer(s) Im working with 'why the hell is 'tsunami' the default ssid' now I can ask, 'do you know why 'tsunami' is used as the default ssid' and can explain why.

Thanks Fred.

By the way, anyone have any more stories for names used in networking and why they were chosen?