By Claus Hetting, Wi-Fi NOW CEO & Chairman
It used to be that costly & cumbersome drilling or rerouting were the only ways to extend enterprise networks through concrete walls, floors, and ceilings. As of last week there’s another option: Blasting gigabit wireless through concrete using Airvine’s new ‘WaveCore™‘ radio system. Airvine is solving a real enterprise networking pain point with an entirely new category of point-to-point radios. It’s a world first.
How do you extend enterprise networks through concrete walls, floors, and ceilings? Commercial real estate buildings around the world typically use 20 centimetre concrete for load-bearing or perimeter walls as well as for floors, ceilings, fire control rooms, and more. Drilling through concrete costs thousands of dollars in permits, inspections, even X-rays – and the process can take a month or more.
Now there’s a solution that involves none of that and instead relies on installing Airvine’s multi-gigabit WaveCore radio unit on either side of the concrete structure. That – says Airvine – takes about two hours. The WaveCore solution was released by Airvine last week.
The WaveCore is a point-to-point Layer 2 Ethernet bridge operating on PoE (power over Ethernet) or a 12V DC input. Airvine says testing earlier this year has delivered impressive results. “In one case we created a 3 Gbps connection through eight inches of concrete at the centre of a 54-foot link, as well as a 4 Gbps connection through a twelve inches of concrete wall in a garage. The latter wall was at the centre of a 6-foot link,” says Dave Sumi, VP Marketing at Airvine.
Airvine has applied its industry-leading expertise in high-gain antenna array technology to create the WaveCore solution, which can be used independently or form part of a Airvine’s WaveTunnel (60 GHz) indoor wireless backhaul system. Airvine says there are three typical use cases: Interior concrete walls, fire control rooms, and commercial real estate floors & ceilings.
“The average cost of penetrating interior concrete walls or floors and ceilings is around $3,000 USD while drilling through to a fire control room can cost as much as $10,000 USD and take two months or more. In all of these cases, WaveCore provides a much less costly, much faster, and still highly reliable alternative. We think it’s a no-brainer,” Dave Sumi says.
WaveCore works seamlessly with Airvine’s WaveTunnel indoor wireless backbone system and together the two radio systems deliver multi-gigabit backbones in virtually any commercial building. “Another big benefit is that little to zero construction is required, which means very little disruption to businesses and very short installation times – which is not the case when structured cabling or drilling has to take place,” he says. Both products are configured and managed from Airvine’s VineSuite™ software platform.
We expect to deliver a lot more information on Airvine’s new solution including a deep-dive webinar on the topic in the near future – so watch this space. Airvine is a WiFi NOW Partner.
/Claus.
