This unique smart wireless offering, developed by the two companies, allows Sky to still deliver the same high-?? performance wireless experience even when high speed fibre connections aren’t practical or economical. This flexible solution builds on an already outstanding service to combine DSL-??links to the AP’s Ethernet ports for throughput amplification, increasing Wi-??Fi capacity in high density area networks. A key benefit is that the roll out of this wireless service doesn’t necessitate a LAN switch, link bonding hardware or special network configuration, which significantly decreases deployment costs, removes the challenge of having a ‘single point of failure’, and optimises the total cost of ownership (TCO) for the service provider.
Another challenge facing service providers today is that all of today’s Wi-??Fi APs, whether legacy or newer models, carry hundreds of megabits or even gigabit per second wireless connectivity. However, popular xDSL technologies ‘ADSL’ (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) and ‘VDSL’ (Very high speed Digital Subscriber Line) or FTTC are limited to tens of megabits per second of downstream capacity.
Sami Susiaho, head of edge technologies at Sky said: “We wanted a simple, scalable, robust and low cost way to add capacity to our hotspots. Line aggregation or fibre optic technologies are too costly to roll-??out to 20,000+ sites. This technology allows us to just add the same again, perhaps many times if needed, very effectively increasing capacity at a fraction of the cost. Our long-??standing successful relationship with Ruckus Wireless meant they were the perfect partners to help us bring this new service to market within six months to the benefit of our customers. This product demonstrates our investment in industry innovation and comes at a time where access to Wi-??Fi is becoming a utility – voice is moving to Wi-??Fi, video traffic is increasing exponentially and the coming summer brings sporting events like International rugby, Test Cricket, Formula 1, the Olympics and the Euros. Evolutions like this keep us in a strong position to grow market share in a highly competitive marketplace.”
