Reliable Mobility from Belden and Extricom

By Erik Linask

Associate Editor,
Internet Telephony magazine

 

Have you ever lost your wireless connection while moving between on-campus offices or buildings?  Worse still, have you ever been at the office with your laptop and lost your network connection without moving from your desk?  Particularly in the enterprise space, mobility is a buzzword, and users say they not only want, but need, greater mobility in order to efficiently conduct business on a daily basis.  Upon the slightest of examinations, however, what businesses really require is improved coverage and reliability in their WLAN deployments, which, in turn, would enable higher levels of efficiency as employees move throughout the enterprise WLAN environment.  All too often, however, businesses are forced to choose between capacity and coverage, reliability and reach.  There is, now, a solution that professes to combine the widest coverage with the highest levels of reliability and maximum capacity.

 

Belden, a developer of wired signal transmission products for the enterprise and industrial markets, and Extricom, the designer of the Interference-Free Wireless LAN System, have entered into a multi-million dollar, multi-year global technology partnership, signifying Belden’s strategic entry into the wireless arena.  The primary focus will be on the development of WiFi (News - Alert) solutions based on Extricom’s technology that are suitable for enterprise deployment

 

“Our entry into wireless technology presents another avenue for the fulfillment of our customers’ needs with unified wired/wireless solutions they can depend on,” said Peter Sheehan, president of Belden Americas.  “Extricom provides a highly differentiated technology that will be the basis for Belden’s future wireless products.”

 

Extricom’s patented Interference-Free WLAN system is easily installed and cost-efficient and supports simultaneous existence of multiple high-availability bandwidth-intensive applications on one network — with no degradation of service, reliability, or mobility, access, or security.

 

Extricom’s is a unique approach, in that it has the innate ability to rise above limitations found in traditional WLAN installations.  The Extricom solution provides constant coverage by using each WLAN channel everywhere — the system eliminates interference through refined control of the wireless access points (APs).

 

To assume this control, the Extricom system uses a centralized architecture, where all the packet delivery decisions are made in the central switch.  This is not only beneficial, but necessary, because the APs themselves have no “brain” — they are merely radios that pass along the data and voice packets between the central switch and the end user devices.  The benefit is that, with an Extricom-based network, clients receive consistent, complete coverage without latency and without interference, which all adds up to greater efficiency and satisfaction.  Indeed, the company says its wireless networks deliver wireline predictability and reliability.

 

Because there is no cell planning necessary, as there is with other WLAN deployments, there also are no requirements for AP placement; they can be placed as close to one another as necessary to ensure ubiquitous wireless coverage.  The APs themselves are thin and because they are nothing but conduits for packet traffic, they are easily deployed and indistinguishable from each other, providing a plug and play environment.  They are connected to the central switch with a standard 100 Mbps Ethernet connection.

 

Because the central switch provides the brains of the network, it is the one piece that requires configuration.  However, configuring the entire deployment is as simple as configuring a single AP in many other WLAN deployments.  It also requires considerably less post-installation attention than IT staff may be used to.

 

“Belden’s name is synonymous with technology innovation, and we are honored to have been selected to contribute a major piece to their wireless initiative,” said Gideon Rottem, CEO and co-founder of Extricom.  “Due to Belden’s unprecedented market reach and their well-earned reputation for quality and reliability, our technologies will benefit customers worldwide.”

 

To learn more about enterprise and SMB wireless deployments, fixed/mobile convergence, alternative wireless deployments, and wireless VoIP, come to Internet Telephony Conference & EXPO, where there are numerous sessions dedicated to exploring the wireless arena.