Nortel Creates Wireless Network Planning Tool

Nortel Networks Ltd. today unveiled its new MeshPlanner software, a modeling program that gives wireless network designers a way to plan around obstacles such as buildings and foliage.

Wireless Valley, a software provider for wireless networks, created the MeshPlanner – which the companies intend to market jointly – for Nortel.

Nortel explains MeshPlanner as a planning tool for optimizing wireless mesh network design. It helps designers ensure service coverage, as well as secure network access for mobility throughout a city or campus. Nortel says the software also reduces planning and implementation costs.

The company developed MeshPlanner to provide always-on wireless connections. “People want full mobility – to be connected anywhere, at any time,” says Mark Whitton, general manager of Wireless LAN Solutions for Nortel. “Nortel is making this a reality through wireless mesh technology that extends WLAN coverage to expansive outdoor areas such as parks, municipalities and university campuses.”

The MeshPlanner helps designers by examining the impact of obstacles such as buildings and foliage on wireless coverage, enabling the network to be deployed faster. The software uses computer modeling of an area to remove guesswork from planning by recommending where wireless access points should be placed. It also predicts how landscape will impact wireless signals and simulates the capacity required to ensure uninterrupted service.

The tool works by letting designers create transit links among access points within the mesh network and then determine which access points will have wired access to the network. To complete the design, the user runs a simulation to check coverage areas, redundancy, capacity requirements, transit links and access point connections. MeshPlanner highlights any design problems and shows which access points need to be adjusted.

“Delivering wireless access everywhere means that mesh networks have to be designed with exacting, predictable precision,” says Whitton. “Wireless Valley has created for Nortel one of the industry’s most robust and powerful mesh planning tools for network design, ultimately enhancing the human experience for the end user.”