MANHASSET, N.Y. — Airflow Networks Inc. is casting its line into the turbulent waters of enterprise Wi-Fi network management, claiming to have solved the issue of co-channel interference and, hence, the need for RF expertise on the part of IT support. The company claims its system is the simplest and clearest path yet to a low-cost scalable Wi-Fi network.
Airflow (Sunnyvale, Calif.) is in an uphill battled against incumbents such as Cisco, and to a lesser extent Proxim and Symbol. Other hopeful startups include Chantry, Trapeze, Aruba and Airespace, as well as established wired networking giants Extreme Networks, Foundry and Nortel.
While all potential wireless providers are being buffeted by a general lack of IT spending and wireless security issues, startups such as AirFlow face the additional task of overcoming the enterprise's instinctive wariness of new products cloaked in claims of simplification and low cost.
However, according to AirFlow marketing manager Brian Jenkins, the company's approach is to break through those barriers. "They're all doing the same thing and none have overcome the fundamental issues of RF interference and the need for site surveys — but we have," he said.
As far as incumbents are concerned, Jenkins cites high costs and lack of scalability. As for the myriad startups, he added, they have a tough road ahead by differentiating themselves in terms of management. AirFlow, by contrast, is differentiating in terms of scalability, coverage and costs.
"Our vision is to make wireless LANs as simple to install and manage as wired networks so that any IT guy can install them — no site surveys and no need for complex management systems like those from many recent startups."
According to Jenkins, typical Wi-Fi networks scale by adding more APs which interfere with each other when on the same channel. Hence, they strategically located APs and managing RF channels, namely channels 1, 6 and 11 for 802.11b.
Still, he said, there's still a trade off between coverage and interference. "It's complex, requires RF expertise and as you add more APs it gets worse," he said. "We've gone to the core of the problem and eliminated co-channel interference at the AP level," he said. "So, instead of multiple APs we have a centralized access point that scales with our technology."
Founded in January 2002 by Harry Bims and $8 million from Bay Partners, AirFlow developed a scheme that essentially splits the media access control portion of the Wi-Fi signal chain. All RF and baseband processing, as well as real-time functions such as request-to-send/clear-to-send (RTS/CTS), are performed in the access point — called the AirHub — while all other functions are performed on a centralized controller. Jenkins said this reduces a network to one AP (the controller) with many antennas (the AirHubs).
In AirFlow's scheme, all APs are on the same channel, so filling coverage holes implies the addition of another AP, said Jenkins. "There's no configuration, IP addresses etc..." he said. "Just the RF interface and that's it." Everything else, including hardware encryption acceleration and authentication, VPN termination and user management and prioritization, is performed by the controller.
In this scheme, the various channels can be used for traffic segmentation and network scaling, instead of interference mitigation. "Because there's no need for hand off, we've cut the reassociation time from 300 ms to 20 ms," said Jenkins.
The controller takes the form of the AirServer or the AirSwitch. Targeted at data centers, the AirServer inlcudes two 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports and one public port and connects directly to established Ethernet networks to add Wi-Fi management capability. The AirSwitch is mainly targeted at the wiring closet or new networks, and includes an Ethernet switch and 12 10/100 Power-over-Ethernet ports.
Up to 30 AirHubs can be supported per controller, with between 20 and 50 users per AirHub. Initially, the AirHubs will support 802.11b only, with one channel — 802.11a/b/g versions will be available in the first half of 2004. Though Jenkins said the hubs use commercial Wi-Fi chips, he would not disclose the vendor. The only proprietary function on the system is the protocol used between the hub and the controller.
The AirServer and AirSwitch list at $7,500 and $8,750, respectively, while an AirHub starter kit, with four hubs, sells for $1,000.
