Meru Networks Goes Mainstream

The Meru approach to wireless networking is to aggregate access points and the controller needed to manage them under a single Service Assurance Platform architecture. That approach makes it easier to manage all the access points, reduces the physical footprint required to set up a wireless network and eliminates bandwidth contention issues, said Graham Melville, director of product management at Meru Networks.

The latest iteration of that technology is the AP1000i, a $395 offering that is designed to make the Meru approach to wireless networking more accessible to a broader range of customers.

As wireless networking evolves, a debate has emerged over how much intelligence needs to reside on the controller versus the access point. Melville says the Meru Networks approach renders much of the debate moot because the architecture is designed from the ground up to dynamically shift users to access points as they move across the building.

This increases overall performance, he said, by making sure that users don’t stay attached to the first access point they connected to as they move about the building, when other access points with more bandwidth capacity are closer to them.