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New Meru dual-802.11ac-radio access point gives customers two 80MHz channels at 5Ghz for up to 3X the performance of 802.11n

Announcement posted by Wavelink 26 Jul 2013

Meru AP832 eliminates the need for costly Ethernet switch upgrades with two 802.11ac radios delivering three spatial streams using standard 802.3af power
 

July 17, 2013 – Meru Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:MERU) has announced the Meru AP832, the market’s fastest 802.11ac access point. Meru’s superior 802.11ac speed is attributable to the Virtual Cell, a single-channel option provided by the MobileFLEX architecture and its support for the use of 80MHz channels as outlined in the IEEE 802.11ac draft specification. Competitors’ wireless architectures largely restrict support for 40MHz channels due to limited channel availability, reducing data rates to approximately half of the 1.3 Gbps-per-radio that the specification allows.

The Meru 802.11ac solution stands alone in its ability to enable the use of three spatial streams over two 802.11ac radios on standard 802.3af power. This eliminates the need for customers to upgrade their entire Ethernet switching infrastructure, as currently required by many Meru competitors when deploying their 802.11ac solutions.

“Ubiquitous and instantaneous access to information resources is essential to ensuring the best possible learning experience for our students and is essential to our future,” said David W. Johnson, head of Technology Services and  Support (TSS) at the University of Houston. “The adoption of Wi-Fi devices on the University of Houston campus has been explosive. Students are likely to carry two or three Wi-Fi enabled devices at any given time and all-encompassing Wi-Fi use in the classroom will soon be the norm. The promise of IEEE 802.11ac to serve up media rich content in highly dense environments makes it a top priority and is driving UH to get out ahead of the curve. We feel that we need to be working with 802.11ac today, learning what it can do and how to leverage it to increase access, improve service and security, and reduce our costs by enabling a shift from wired to wireless infrastructure.”

“Bellarmine is committed to staying on the leading edge of technology adoption to ensure that our students have the best possible learning experience,” said Chris Carey, tech director at Bellarmine College Preparatory in San Jose, Calif. “We’re currently in the midst of launching a one-to-one iPad initiative for the 2013-2014 school year and are working closely with Meru to ensure that our WLAN solution exhibits the perfect blend of density, performance and control.  Meru’s .11ac solutions will play a critical role in helping us advance our technology leadership position and support future education technology initiatives.”

A Northeast US K-12 school district encompassing more than 240 schools and almost 150,000 students also chose Meru 802.11ac solutions for its extensive 802.11ac deployment.

802.11ac adoption will be driven by the quickly-growing number of mobile devices, the BYOD trend and high-bandwidth applications such as HD video, video conferencing and cloud-based services and storage. Consumer devices such as smart phones and tablets supporting 802.11ac are available now. ABI Research estimates that there will be 1.5 billion 802.11ac smart phones and tablets in the market by 2016.

“With the advent of the new 802.11ac standard, WLAN Infrastructures are expected to see early adopter deployments in the enterprise this year, largely focused on addressing the need to support rapid growth and density of BYOD devices. This is coupled with the transition of video, collaboration and cloud applications towards becoming relatively ubiquitous in highly-productive mobile enterprises,” said Rohit Mehra, vice president, network infrastructure, IDC.

“Meru’s new AP832 access points feature a two-radio and three spatial stream design that can tap the full potential of 802.11ac with high bandwidth and capacity to meet the challenges of high density environments and multi-media rich applications.”  

NEW 802.11ac AP832 access point - the Meru advantage
Building on the Meru MobileFLEX architecture, the AP832 features an industry-leading design with two dual-band 802.11ac-supporting radios capable of simultaneously transmitting on the 5Ghz band. This allows users to overlay 802.11ac APs on 802.11n networks to solve capacity problems in high density environments. The AP832 also enables the use of three spatial streams with only standard 802.3af power over Ethernet (PoE), helping customers avoid forklift upgrades to their switching infrastructures as required by many competitors. The AP832 access point enables customers to address the challenges created by high-density client environments and increased client diversity by leveraging the full potential of 802.11ac. It is also backwards-compatible to support 802.11n clients in both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz bands.

Meru AP832 access points are designed to fit into existing Meru AP332 (802.11n) mounting brackets, enabling quick and easy plug-and-play upgrades.

802.11ac migration
Meru has gone to great lengths to ensure a seamless upgrade path from 802.11n to 802.11ac. Meru controllers can be upgraded to support 802.11ac using Meru System Director 6.0 software. To take advantage of 802.11ac, customers do need to buy 802.11ac AP832 access points.

“Meru’s single-channel option, part of the MobileFLEX architecture, gives the company measurable advantages over the other vendors in the market, all of whom require multiple channels to avoid co-channel interference and are therefore limited in their ability to achieve full 1.3 Gbps 802.11ac data rates,” said Manish Rai, vice president of marketing at Meru. “The flexibility and scalability of the Meru architecture ensures that our customers get the full benefit of the 802.11ac specification.”

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About Meru Networks
Meru Networks (NASDAQ: MERU) is a market leader in the development of mobile access and virtualised Wi-Fi solutions. Meru’s MobileFLEX wireless architecture addresses the ever-growing need for higher bandwidth and higher client densities. The Meru Identity Manager solution greatly simplifies secure device on-boarding and the company’s unique Context-aware Application Layers enable dedicated channel assignments for specific applications, devices and usage scenarios. Meru customers include Fortune 500 businesses as well as leaders in education, healthcare and hospitality. Founded in 2002, Meru is headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., with operations in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia Pacific and Japan. Visit www.merunetworks.com or call (408) 215-5300 for more information.

Meru and Meru Networks are registered trademarks and the Meru logo is a trademark of Meru Networks, Inc. in the United States. All other trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners.