Vivato, a company that has revolutionized the Wi-Fi world, has now announced their actual products - an indoor and outdoor version of their Wi-Fi switches - and a lot more technical information about how they work.
When I wrote about Vivato in last November's Wireless Business & Technology (v.2, n.9), we were one of the first publications to cover the launch of the company's revolutionary "Wi-Fi Switch" that extended the range of a single wireless access point to cover entire buildings, yet was compatible with all the 802.11 standards.
It was a "first look" article. The actual products weren't available, but I got to play with the prototype and talked with Ken Biba, the CEO, and Phil Belanger, VP of marketing, about their new technology.
This time, I spoke with Belanger shortly before the product announcement. "We have received FCC certification on the prototype and expect no hiccups on the final products," he said. "Our switches focus the power rather than increase it, so we fall within the 100 milliwatt range of the 802.11 standard. We just squish it into a wedge."
"The customer benefit here is less wires," he continued. "Our switch is a true wireless switch and replaces a sea of access points, security controller/gateways, wiring, and labor."
One of the secrets of setting up a wireless network is the amount of wiring that is still needed to make it work, especially in a commercial setting. Network switches, hubs, and access points all need to be wired together before the clients can access the network. Vivato's new indoor switch, which looks like a wall hanging (see photo), drops into your existing network, works with your existing 802.11 client cards and PC cards, and handles up to 150 users.
By the way, the Vivato Wi-Fi switch extends the range of the wireless network from the normal 50 meters to about 300 meters (984 feet) indoors. The coverage for one switch is 100 degrees. This covers a pie-shaped wedge of about 6,246 square meters (67,240 square feet), or a large "sea of cubes" office floor. Hang it on the wall, connect it to your network, set up the software included, and you are done, except for collecting up any wired networking stuff you already have and selling it on eBay. Do you have a four-story building? Hang up four switches. Done.
There are lots of details, of course. First and foremost, this equipment is not available for purchase until May 3. The retail price is $8,995. As with any wireless installation, placement, coverage, and security are all issues, but at least all the challenges are in one place - that wall hanging.
Vivato uses "smart antennas" and "PacketSteering" to extend the Wi-Fi range. The phased-array radio antennas seemed complicated until I thought about flashlights. My "Mag" type flashlight has a twistable lens that adjusts for a wide or narrow beam. The wide beam is good for close up, while the narrow beam illuminates a small portion of the world, but over a long distance. Vivato's smart antenna uses the focused narrow beam to get the extended range.
The phased-array antennas are super sensitive. When you send a request to the network, such as a Web page request, the antenna can sense your request from as far away as 300 meters, and direct a beam in your direction, thus connecting your computer to the network.
PacketSteering allows up to three simultaneous beams per installation to flicker on and off and change direction as up to 150 users make multiple requests on the network. I use the word "flicker" but it is a modest description. Actually, a beam is created for each packet of information to and from each user and it is all done at nearly light speed. This high-speed switching from packet to packet, and assembling the packets back into your requests and data, is the underlying technology that makes the whole thing work so well.
Need more bandwidth? At the back end are a couple of one-gigabit ports, allowing you to hook up the switch to your fastest network connection. There are also two 10/100 Ethernet connections so if you still have some wires on your network, they can be incorporated. One designer touch, the panels come in a range of colors to match your office décor.
In the future, Vivato will offer 802.11a and 802.11g versions that will increase bandwidth for the user to 54Mbps (megabits per second) and an outdoor version with a weatherproof cover that extends the range to two kilometers. The outdoor version can be used to network entire buildings or a campus from a single access point. All I can say is, "I'm ready for this!"
The full details and specifications can be found on Vivato's Web site at www.vivato.net.