Johannesburg, 14 Oct 2016
Nology, a leading supplier of broadband, networking and VOIP products, has announced its appointment as South Africa's official distributor of internationally acclaimed AirTies' products. This new relationship paves the way for delivering ultra-performance, in-home WiFi to South Africa. Nology will be showcasing the AirTies' products at this year's MyBroadband Conference taking place at Gallagher Convention Centre on 20 October 2016.
With Internet access services getting faster and faster, the conventional in-home WiFiarchitecture of a centralised access point is becoming problematic. The weakening of wireless signals through walls and floors results in degraded performance over distance, as well as WiFidead-spots. Unlike traditional WiFi, which relies on a single access point (AP) from a router/gateway, AirTies' system uses multiple APs placed around the home to create an intelligent Mesh network that ensures consistent performance of high quality, whole-home Internet coverage.
Willem Venter, Technical Director at Nology explains: "With the ever-increasing uptake of fibre and other high-bandwidth access mediums in the residential market, the commonly accepted in-home WiFi architecture requires a radical overhaul. Customers paying an Internet Service Provider for a 100 or 1 000 Mbps service expect to have proper connection speeds everywhere in the home. However, these customers are quickly disappointed, not by the speed the operator delivers on the gateway WAN port, but rather by the inability of the in-home WiFi infrastructure to deliver that speed to all corners of the home. High-speed Internet access services coupled with the insatiable need for video streaming has moved the network-bottleneck from the last mile, to the last few meters. As such, we look forward to bringing AirTies' in-home WiFi mesh solutions to operators here across South Africa."
"Nology clearly understands that operators in South Africa are re-thinking their approach to the whole-home experience, and that providing consistently fast WiFi in every corner of the home is paramount," said Ian Challinor, Executive Vice President and General Manager of EMEA and APAC. "AirTies currently provides our managed mesh solution to leading operators around the globe, and we are excited about this new relationship with Nology to expand into South Africa."
A new approach to in-home WiFi
Previous attempts at solving the in-home WiFi problem include the use of WiFi repeaters, but these tend to come with their own set of problems in terms of set-up and use. Using a repeater generally results in a fragmented WiFi coverage where the client device (e.g. a smartphone, laptop, tablet, etc.) need to exercise the decision of where to connect. It is evident that these mobile smart devices do not make intelligent decisions when it comes to optimal connection. This often compels the home user to manually switch between WiFi networks to ensure connection to the best-performing access point.
Until now, cabling remained the only feasible alternative to carry the high speed delivered by the ISP to every other room in the home. Typically, however, little attention is paid to data cabling routes when homes are designed and built, therefore the user is left with a choice of either poor and fragmented WiFi using repeaters or drilling, chasing and general outfitting of unsightly data cables.
AirTies has solved this problem by developing a distributed mesh WiFi system in the form of a pre-paired triple-pack of Air 4920 devices specifically for the residential market. Instead of having just one router be the WiFi hub for the entire house, the AirTies triple-pack WiFi kit use multiple APs to increase coverage and performance. This allows the user to place dual-band mesh WiFi access points throughout his/her home to cover the entire premises with robust, high-performance WiFi. The AP's automatically establish wireless back-haul links between one another (using super-fast 802.11ac technology) to ensure that data transmission patterns are optimised throughout the home. When and where practical, the user can also use an Ethernet cable to connect any two mesh nodes using the 1 000 Mbps Ethernet ports on the back of the Air 4920.
A single device option for the Air 4920 is also available and can be applied as either an extension to an existing mesh (3+1), or a stand-alone access point.
AirTies' in-home Mesh technology explained
Support for wireless video streaming
Consumers love to watch Internet videos on their mobile devices at home, but hate to see them buffering at the most exciting parts. Streaming to moving wireless devices is even more challenging. The AirTies' dual-band (802.11ac 1600 Mbps) WiFi mesh system prioritises video signals over other Internet traffic to ensure optimal performance. This enables consumers to connect their wired or wireless Set-Top-box and watch HD or UHD IPTV with no cabling required.
Intelligent client and band steering
Smartphones, tablets and other WiFi client devices tend to make poor decisions when it comes to which access point to connect to - especially when on the move. These devices tend to stick with one AP choice as long as it can still be seen, regardless of whether other Access Points or frequency bands might present better options. These "sticky clients" can decrease the entire network performance.
The intelligent AirTies 4920 dual-band mesh consistently analyses the location, status and performance of each of WiFi clients and actively hands-off the client to a better positioned AP ensuring maximum performance. The mesh system also learns the WiFi capabilities of each individual client allowing for the optimisation of band utilisation. If a dual-band capable device is settling for a connection on the slower 2.4GHz band, the system automatically steers this client to the 5GHz band not only improving the throughput performance of that particular device, but also alleviating congestion on the 2.4GHz band, boosting the performance of legacy single-band devices.
Compact design
The devices sport a compact design with dimensions of only 100mm (H) x 108.4mm (D) x 41.5mm (W) each.
Easy installation and expansion
Installation and set-up is easy for consumers and does not require a technician. Setup is managed by a user-friendly mobile application (iOS/Android) that also sports some excellent management features like an in-home sitemap, connected client lists, mesh-link health and guest access control. In addition, it facilitates a single WiFi network with one name and one password for the entire home.
For more specifications and details on the solution, please visit the Nology Web page here: www.nology.co.za/airties
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