New Wi-Fi gear aims to wipe out Ethernet edge switches

Meru announced on Wednesday high-performance Wi-Fi access points and software designed to let enterprise IT groups replace wired Ethernet switches at the network edge.

Dubbed Teton, the new 802.11n platform includes software to optimize usage by increasingly diverse Wi-Fi customers, including iPads and other tablets as so then as smartphones. Teton introduces what Meru calls the "WLAN 500 mode," which is a network-wide service with features that let one access point deal with up to 500 Wi-Fi customers in a 500-square foot area.

(Before this week, in separate announcement addressing big wireless networks, Motorola Solutions said it was jacking up its WiFi controller tenfold to handle up to 10,000 access points.)

Meru is not but announcing prices for the new hardware, due out later this year. The company's pitch is that the new product line will enable enterprises to phase out Ethernet edge switches, which are increasingly left idle as laptops and other customers connect via Wi-Fi. However even idle, there are support contracts, electricity, operational costs and traditional switch replacement cycles for which enterprises are paying. It seems likely there will be some premium for the powerful new radios and the software features, yet Meru's pricing calculations may take into account the capital and operational costs of edge switches to spur adoption.

The idea of eliminating wired Ethernet as the primary network access has been controversial for the past two or three years. However even in 2009, a range of enterprises were discovering that a majority of their wired Ethernet ports were completely idle, because users were relying on Wi-Fi.

The new products make use of Meru's distinctive "WLAN virtualization" software, which among other things, lets you assign one channel to all access points, simplifying access and management. Additional channel assignments, for specific groups or types of customers or applications, can be actually stacked across the access points, in what Meru calls channel layering.

The AP400 series the power

But Meru is adding several capabilities that give the AP400 series the power, flexibility and intelligence to replace edge Ethernet switches. The WLAN 500 "mode" or service already mentioned is one: a set of Meru algorithms let each radio coordinate with others, load balance, and steer radio signals to optimize throughput.

A second is called Distribution Mode, which Meru proposes to replace or for the moment reduce the racks of wiring closet switches. In Distribution Mode, AP400 becomes an aggregation point for other access points in the network, via Meru's Wi-Fi meshing software. They pass their traffic wirelessly back to these aggregators, which can offer 900M to 1.8Gbps of backhaul capacity depending on the number of radios. The aggregator has a Gigabit Ethernet port to a higher-end, aggregation-level Ethernet switch.

A third new service is a patent-pending research called Orthogonal Array Beam Forming. WLAN vendors over the past two years have been adding support for various optional parts of the 11n standard, including transmit beam forming. The same waveform is sent over 11n's multiple antennas, with the magnitude and phase adjusted at each transmitter to focus the beam direction toward a particular receiver. This increases the signal's gain so it's more stable, and can be "steered around" interferers so it's more reliable.

The result of the improved gain is a higher signal quality and higher data rates: where Meru saw 36Mbps previously applying its beamforming innovation, it saw 54Mbps afterwards, for instance. "It stays at the high data rates because the signal is stronger, and better quality," Melville says.

Another network service is called Mobile Application Segregation: administrators can create a dedicated channel for individual applications or groups of them, high definition video, or wireless VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol).