Roam Anywhere WiFi from Ubiquiti
Roam Anywhere WiFi from Ubiquiti by UCStrategies Staff
UniFi 3.0 has been released by Ubiquiti Networks, and is reportedly the first WiFi platform to deliver 802.11ac access points and management software to meet the growing demands of under-networked businesses, hotel chains, restaurants, hospitals, schools, and others.
In the Gartner Research Market Share: Enterprise WLAN Equipment Worldwide, 4Q12 and 2012 report, Ubiquiti was noted to be a vendor of coordinated wireless access points with a year-over-year worldwide unit shipment growth rate in 2012 of 205 percent.
The newest protocol for the 802.11 wireless networking standard is 802.11ac (which is also known as Gigabit WiFi); this allows for the transfer of more than three times the data transfer speeds of the present 802.11n protocol, and also offers better network robustness, reliability and RF bandwidth utilization efficiency for applications that are very demanding, such as HD video, video conferencing, streaming media, VoIP and more.
“Zero Hand-Off Roaming” technology is also being offered by the UniFi 3.0 software, and this allows people who use mobile devices to roam anywhere and easily maintain their connection as they tune in to the nearest AP. At present, roaming solutions need to work out what the client device is, and this can cause delays or issues with interoperability. The Zero Hand-Off Roaming makes a number of APs appear as one, and they will operate with any client and will not need any interaction with the client device.
The VP of Marketing at Ubiquiti, David Hsieh, said: “One of the big challenges for all organizations are access points. With Zero Hand-Off Roaming it can offload any negotiation and authentication, allowing allows access point to pass a live connection from one access point to the other. For instance, when you walk across a campus, the access points will “talk” to one another to easily give you a new wireless connection.”
UniFi 3.0 is a development on former UniFi releases, and provides hotspot management and a software controller that is flexibly deployed; this can be run on-premises, in a private cloud or public cloud.
New features of the UniFi 3.0 software includes multi-site management capabilities which allows for the distributed deployments to be managed by a single controller, and enables multi-tenancy for managed service providers. Detailed analytics is another feature, and this can be used to manage big numbers of users, which allows for fast troubleshooting. WLAN Groups enable flexible configuration of large deployments, and wireless mesh capabilities means that APs do not need a wired uplink.
Additionally, Hsieh said that the access points of 802.11ac cost $299, and this ensures that the Ubiquiti can combine technology with affordable prices. Furthermore, an internal sales force is not employed by Ubiquiti, and all sales are made through the company’s distributor and reseller networks. Hsieh said: “Because of our biz model, we are roughly 20 percent of the cost of any of our competitors, and we are growing quickly, especially within places like retail and hospitality, and more specifically restaurants, where they are struggling with having the right kind of adequate wireless connections and coverage.” (CY) Link