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Cisco bares product line for wireless internet access(Business World (Philippines))Cisco Systems has created a new way to bring the internet revolution to the people. The company recently introduced a product line that makes it far more viable to deploy wireless, or WiFi, internet access over outdoor areas. By tapping an emerging technology known as wireless mesh networking and adding innovative operational and management capabilities, Cisco offers cities and towns a more affordable method for providing free, public internet access, helping deliver what many city officials views as an essential service while boosting economic development and improving municipal operations. The heart of the system is the Cisco Aironet 1500 Series access points, which transmit and receive the wireless radio signals for connecting laptops and other mobile computing devices to the internet or other wired networks. Unlike typical access points used for "hotspot" wireless connections at coffee shops, airports and other locations, the Aironet 1500 mesh access points can operate without a direct connection to a wired network. Also called "backhaul," the requirement for a direct connection to a wired network has been the limiting factor for wireless deployment, especially ones that are outdoors and far from the nearest ethernet cable. But wireless mesh networks only need one, or at least much fewer, wired connections than standard WiFi systems. Wireless mesh access points can use their wireless capabilities to transmit backhaul traffic from one access point to another and out to the internet. In this way, wireless mesh access points operate much like the router nodes of a wired network, with traffic flowing from one access point to another over the most efficient path. Mesh networks make it much easier for people to roam, or move, while connected. Each access point can pick up a connection as a person travels out of range of one access point and into the range of another one. Thanks to this capability, mesh technology extends WiFi service from "spot" coverage to "blanket" coverage, making it possible for users to remain connected while traveling through an area as small as a few city blocks to one as large as 50 square miles or more. While other vendors are also developing mesh technologies, Cisco has tapped its wireless and wired networking expertise to create a highly scalable and easy to manage infrastructure. Early this year, Cisco expanded its wireless product line with the acquisition of Airespace, Inc., a provider of centralized wireless local area network equipment, including mesh architecture. By combining Airespace's technology with Cisco's wireless products, the company developed its new wireless mesh offering. The new products, including the Cisco Aironet 1500 Series access points, are now part of the Cisco Unified Network architecture, which includes a broad range of wireless devices and centralized management components for facilitating deployment and reducing the management costs and complexities of wireless networks. Thanks to their lower costs, wireless mesh networks answer the growing demands for ubiquitous internet access and other related digital communications. Cities can install mesh access points from street lights, power poles, or other public infrastructure in a matter of minutes. The only crucial requirement is source of power. And since all the access points "talk" to each other, centralized management is much easier than with previous WiFi technology. If one access point fails, the network continues working just as before, only losing reception around the incapacitated access point. The Cisco adaptive wireless path protocol provides the key intelligence for effectively running the Cisco mesh networks, said Ben Gibson, director of wireless and mobility marketing for Cisco. Just as with the routers that serve as the traffic cops of the wired networks, the Cisco Aironet 1500 Series access points use sophisticated mathematical algorithms to decide the best ways to route traffic from access point to access point and out to the main wired network. The protocol helps traffic avoid congested nodes, offering the wireless networks a "self-healing" capability, Mr. Gibson explained. "This is where Cisco's routing expertise comes into play," he said. "Just as with wired networks, the quality of a wireless mesh network boils down to the ability of the equipment to route traffic intelligently, efficiently and dependably. Designing equipment for this task has been the forte of Cisco for the past 20 years." Cisco's Aironet 1500 access points also provides greater band-width performance and reliability thanks to its dual-radio design, Mr. Gibson said. It contains one radio for making the connection with mobile users and another radio dedicated to managing the backhaul traffic flowing among the access points and out to the internet. Many other mesh network access points only use one radio for both user access and backhaul traffic. While Cisco access points might cost marginally more than mesh access points with one radio, Mr. Gibson said the operational benefits of two- radio access points far outweigh their initial costs. He said they boost network reliability and effectiveness since backhaul traffic on single-radio access points often drains performance from the bandwidth available to users. |