Wifi Revolution

Meru Networks (News - Alert) says it’s planning to allow hundreds of bloggers and journalists covering the Democratic National Convention in Denver next week to file stories and share ideas through a wireless network.

 

The company said that up to 400 bloggers, electronic journalists and nonprofit leaders in the Big Tent , a two-story, 8,000-square-foot “new media center” near the main convention at the Pepsi Center, will use Meru’s wireless LAN to relay huge volumes of voice, data and video information to the world.

 

Bobby Clark, deputy director of Denver-based ProgressNow, a co-host of the Big Tent, said that even though the largest of the political bloggers now have a combined monthly audience of more than 10 million people, they can’t use traditional press venues at the convention.

 

“The Big Tent is about access for the new media, and technology vendors such as Meru, Google (News - Alert) and Digg are key to helping us provide that access,” he said.

 

According to Carter Johnson, MIS with the Colorado Environmental Coalition, also a Big Tent co-host, the expected high density of users and equipment over the four days of the convention was a major challenge in providing wireless coverage for the event. He said that everything must imported to the tent, and as many as 400 users may be online simultaneously at peak periods with a changing mix of data, voice and video. So, he said, organizers were searching for a product that was quick to deploy and could support a lot of people in a small area.

 

Johnson said that the Meru wireless LAN addressed all those demands. The Meru network in the Big Tent is based on IEEE 802.11n, the newest and most advanced version of WiFi (News - Alert) technology. Johnson further explained that they selected 11n as the area around the convention will be extremely dense with journalists and electronic news-gathering equipment, all competing for bandwidth.

 

Meru 11n dual-radio access points can work in the both 5.0- or 2.4-gigahertz radio spectrums, so users with newer 11n-equipped laptops or handhelds can occupy the 5.0-GHz band, while those with legacy 802.11b/g clients use the 2.4-GHz band. Johnson said that Meru 11n access points are backward-compatible with the 11b/g standards, and thus they can serve any type of WiFi client.

 

The WLAN will bring predictability to the inherently unpredictable, almost chaotic, environment that characterizes media coverage of a national political convention, according to Meru Chief Executive Officer Ihab Abu-Hakima. He said that this environment requires a robust infrastructure that supports voice, data and video, and can adjust in real time to changing demands.

 

The Big Tent organizers say learned about Meru through contacts at the Denver International Airport, which is using a Meru WLAN in 2007 to provide access for travelers and staff.

 

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