Interface Technologies NW Blog » cisco

Is MERU Networks the wireless platform that you should have in your medical clinic?

andy — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 03:30:46 +0000

ITN has been working with several healthcare related firms over the past few years with great success. ITN has installed MERU Networks wireless equipment in many different healthcare facilities ranging from a small doctor office to a regional hospital serving multiple floors and hundreds of users & patients. One of our first clinics to adopt the MERU Wireless product had cycled through other brands such as Cisco and Aruba with poor results. These products had failed to perform at the level required for accuracy of data input, proper coverage, interference, and most important to the doctors at this clinic, ease and consistency of connection. It’s unfortunate that they purchased inferior solutions twice but the good news is that this clinic was still willing and interested to depend on wireless for their architecture. Four years later, the MERU Networks system in this clinic is still performing flawlessly. With Meru, healthcare organizations can ensure that physicians and caregivers stay continuously connected throughout the hospital, with toll-quality voice and seamless roaming. Meru supports critical mobile applications at the point of care, enabling hospitals to confidently deploy innovative solutions for mobile access to patient records, patient monitoring, dosage verification, voice, and asset tracking. Easy to deploy and simple to manage, they deliver the industry’s best user experience with low total cost of ownership.

Is VOIP a good fit for you?

andy — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 03:23:40 +0000

VOIP has been “all the buzz” the last year or two and touted as the next big tool for business, but is it really a good fit for you? If new Ethernet switches are considered in the budget, then the overall cost of VOIP is usually higher than Digital. Digital would never require re-wiring the office where VOIP might. Having VOIP requires the separation of voice traffic and data traffic, or the execution of a network assessment to see how well the “network” will handle the addition of voice if voice (VOIP) and data traffic were converged.

We take a different approach because the built-in features of the latest generation of VOIP systems are also available on the AVAYA IP Office in the digital configuration too! Remote workers, quick phone moves, and “hotel-ing” are the primary benefits to VOIP. The AVAYA IP Office has the ability to have VOIP, Digital, and Analog devices ALL working off of the same phone system therefore we can configure your office to be “all digital” while having your remote users on VOIP! ITN can program the ability to do “hotel-ing” on any group of phones allowing for random access for transient workers. When you look at the big picture, VOIP is not the answer for every business. Maybe our competitors tout VOIP because their systems won’t do digital?

MERU 802.11N wireless versus the rest!

andy — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 20:38:34 +0000

Novarum (independent research group) reported 3 key differences between MERU’s 802.11N product and that of Cisco and Aruba. The first significant difference was 40mbps more of throughput over MERU’s competitors. Performance was usually above 170mbps beating the other guys’ by 40mbps. The next thing they found was in the category of “Air Time Fairness” where MERU’s solution provided “fair and equitable access” to the 802.11N clients being served by the WLAN. Airtime fairness is important because it’s how the signal is shared by different clients, both old school (b/g/a) and the new (N), and gives a sense of network stability in the eyes of the client (user). The final standout in Novarum’s WLAN testing is in the category of “Toll Grade Voice”. Neither Cisco or Aruba can match MERU’s performance in supporting voice applications at a toll grade voice level. MERU’s product registers above a MOS score of 4.0 with high density, bi-directional voice and data traffic. Interface Technologies’ AVAYA VOIP users and dual mode cell phone users require a WLAN system like MERU’s to provide toll quality voice performance.

QOS rated wireless LAN from MERU

andy — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:27:48 +0000

What is QOS? QOS is “Quality of Service” and is a hugely important when considering the move to an all wireless VOIP solution. Without QOS rated wireless, a company’s voice communications will be unsatisfactory. In a nutshell, QOS is a function of your wireless LAN’s ability to “prioritize voice” transmissions on the network in order to maintain the appropriate performance levels. These performance levels can be measured with a “MOS score” to measure “Toll Quality Voice”. MERU’s Virtual Cell technology and Air Traffic Control show powerful results in independent testing. In the testing procedures, the evaluation group compared MERU and two other big names in a multiple testing format of combined VOIP and laptop users with the largest single test being a combined 48 data users and 24 simultaneous VOIP users. In this last scenario testing with 15 APs, MERU and another competitor tied for MOS scores of 4.5 while both maintaining data throughput of over 33 mbps using 802.11g gear. When the AP count was reduced from 15 to 10 with the same number of clients trying to connect to the network (48 laptops, 24 VOIP phones), MERU’s throughput stayed above 33mpbs and its MOS score only dropped to 4.0, the bar for “toll quality voice”. The other guys’ both came in below 5mpbs in throughput and MOS scores of 3 and 1.4, well below the standard for toll quality voice. This testing showed us that MERU’s WLAN is very scalable, requires less infrastructure to perform at the same or better levels to support voice and data, more easily managed without the need for costly RF planning, and outperforms its’ closest competitors in the market place at nearly every level.