Grandstream | Ruckus

The explosive growth in devices and applications has resulted in an insatiable demand for faster and better Wi-FI for over a decade. From 2003 with 500 million connected devices and streaming audio content running at 128kbps, to predication by 2020 of 30 billion connected devices and streaming 4K video running at 25mbps, enterprises have struggled with architecting and supporting this growth.

In support, the Wi-Fi industry ratifies a new standard every five to seven years that addresses the shortcomings of previous standards while supporting new uses for Wi-Fi 802.11ax is the latest iteration in the evolution of Wi-Fi that increases network performance on multiple axes of performance. This new standard delivers technology among many such as OFDMA, 1024-AQM and wake-time parameters that improve peak data rates approaching 10Gbps, deliver more concurrent device connections up to 75, and optimizes power usage per device.

Demand for Better Wi-FI

Standards and Beyond

So while 802.11ax improves core Wi-Fi performance, there continues to be an unabated need to deliver great Wi-Fi technology that goes beyond the standards. Delivering great Wi-Fi is hard, and it’s only getting harder. The biggest, most endemic problems fall into eight categories.

Mobility : When a user moves out of the coverage range of an access point (AP) and must connect to another AP in the same network – the WLAN network must migrate the user’s devices gracefully without disruptions.

Inteference : Wall and Floors, other Wi-Fi networks, and appliances can all interfere with the Wi-Fi network leading to network congestion and a poor user experience.

Security : Lack of adherence to best practices for securing the network opens hackable attack surfaces for malicious actors looking to steal intellectual property, money and personal identities. The KRACK exploit threatened billions of Wi-Fi devices overnight in 2016 and made headline news.

Standards : With the explosion of IoT devise, a new set of wireless connectivity standards have emerged such as Bluetooth LE, Zigbee, LoRA, NB-IoT and more. The traditional AP is now tasked to support not just Wi-Fi.

Infrastructure : Supporting infrastructure that sit behind the AP are just as important. Technologies such as multi-gigabit Ethernet, 802.3bz and the latest PoE standards like 802.3bt are critical for delivering great Wi-Fi performance.

Deployment : Physical constraints can prevent the deployment of Wi-Fi within street furniture, in vehicles, and other space restrictive locations such as light poles. The delivery of Wi-Fi requires defining form-factorsthat are not mandated by the standards body.

Density : Ultra-dense environments with a very large numbers of users and devices present in a small area like a stadium or transit hub creates unique Wi-Fi Challenges that leads to a deterioration in the Wi-Fi network performance.

Applications : 4K video streaming , virtual and augmented reality and live-stream gaming all consume far greater bandwidth today than 128kbps streaming music of times past.

Grandstream | Ruckus

RF Planning

RF Planning is the process of assigning frequencies, transmitter locations and parameters of a wireless communications system to provide sufficient coverage and capacity for the services required. Cellular, trunked, Wi-Fi, or MANET radios, while each unique in modeling, still depend upon these fundamental aspects. The RF plan of a communication system has two objectives: coverage and capacity. Coverage relates to the geographical footprint within the system that has sufficient RF signal strength to provide for a call/data session. Capacity relates to the capability of the system to sustain a given number of participants. Capacity and coverage are interrelated. To improve coverage, capacity has to be sacrificed, while to improve capacity, coverage will have to be sacrificed