Meru Networks Increases Wireless Density

To address this issue, Meru Networks today rolled out the AP 400 Mobile Edge access point platform, which the company claims is the industry’s first three-stream 802.11n quad-radio access point. Designed to provide a maximum total data rate of 1.8Gbps, the company says the AP 400 Mobile Edge makes use of virtualization and a proprietary Orthogonal Array Beam Forming technology to significantly increase the number of devices that can be connected to the network in any given location.

According to Joel Vincent, director of product marketing for Meru Networks, the issue most IT organizations are going to run into as the number of devices on the network continues to expand is that as end users roam, they tend to congregate around the same access point, which invariably limits the amount of actual network bandwidth available to each end user. The Meru Networks approach, he says, solves this problem by proactively balancing loads across multiple access points on the network in a way that eliminates the need to rely on Layer 2 switches to manage multiple access points.

In addition, with the release of the AP 400 Mobile Edge, the company is now making it possible to dedicate a specific radio channel to a class of applications, he added.

The AP400 Mobile Edge AP platform is scheduled to be available in the second half of 2011.