Meru Networks at Interop this week unveils a new group of Radio Switches – which can offer 1.2gbps of capacity in a single access point – for high-density data and VoIP mobility applications.
Joel Vincent, director of product marketing, explains that the new switches allow enterprise customers to expand their wireless networks to create “blankets of coverage” without adding a large number of APs, thereby eliminating co-channel interference problems that result from multiple APs and providing a better environment for voice traffic.
Creating or expanding to build a high-density network traditionally requires the addition of APs, says Vincent, but handoff (and related reauthentication) between APs adds delay – typically between 300 milliseconds and a full second – that voice traffic simply cannot tolerate.
Vincent adds that the Meru Radio Switch, which is an indoor solution, offers 12 times the capacity in terms of the number of clients supported and total throughput of the average AP, so fewer APs are required. That capacity is achieved with Meru’s patent-pending Wideband RF Combination/Omni-Directional (WRC/OD) antenna technology, which combines wideband RF signals from multiple channels into a single omni-directional antenna.
By eliminating the need to add additional APs – and backhaul wiring for those APs – to add density, the Meru Radio Switch can save enterprises more than 45 percent on the total cost of their WLANs, according to Meru.
“With our system, one box does 12 channels,” Vincent says. “When you add a nearby AP, that’s coordinated with our controller, so it doesn’t interfere with other AP’s channels.” When deployed with a Meru Controller, multiple Radio Switches coordinate with each other to create up to 12 channels (or “virtual cells,” as Meru calls them), which are continuous footprints of total throughput per Radio Switch coverage area from up to 648mbps with 802.11 a/b/g radios, and up to 1.2gbps with future 802.11n radios.
The Meru Radio Switch products include the four-radio RS-4000, the eight-radio RS-8000, 12-radio RS-12000 and a patent-pending, built-in omni-directional antenna. The Meru RS-4000, RS-8000 and RS-12000 will be available in July 2005. Pricing for the four-radio RS-4000 starts at $1,595 and the eight-radio RS-8000 starts at $2,995 U.S. list. Pricing for the RS-12000 will be announced at a later date.
