World-renowned Altai Wi-Fi products now available in SA

One kilometer range now possible through agents Multisource

The world-renowned Altai range of Wi-Fi products, allowing a ten square kilometer reach, now available in South Africa through wireless communication specialist Multisource Telecoms, is to be launched at the upcoming MyBroadband Conference.

While existing Wi-Fi systems typically produce Wi-Fi hotspots with a maximum range of 200 to 300 square metres, the new Altai range is capable of creating a Wi-Fi hot zone of up to 10 square km. The Altai A8 Super Wi-Fi Base Station effectively improves the non-line-of-sight Wi-Fi signal coverage with adaptive interference control which minimises the interference effect of other signals in the unlicensed frequency spectrum.

Developed in Hong Kong, the Altai range has met with success in many countries already. China Mobile uses the system for data offload on their GSM network, the Middle East Ports Authority uses it in combination with wireless tags attached to its containers to facilitate tracking and even Central Park in New York is now a Altai covered Wi-Fi Hot Zone/Park!. This is to name but a few.

The Altai range is a particularly cost effective solution, as its increased range can lower the required capital investment in wireless network infrastructure. The wide area carrier grade Wi-FI produced is ideal for any organisation requiring large coverage areas, such as hospitals, university campuses, airports or any large business or security company, requiring remote management of their surveillance cameras using Wi-Fi.

Altai has extended wifi use from the Hot-Spot scenario to that of Hot-Zones, and Hot- Parks making it ideal for gated communities such as housing estates, which is particularly relevant in South Africa.

A total of 16 Service Set Identifiers (SSIDs) can be run on a single Altai radio, meaning that 16 virtual private networks (VPNs) can be run simultaneously. This is useful, for example, for a shopping centre, where management can sell Wi-Fi to 16 different service providers. Any organization can use it to provide up to 16 VPNs, each one allocated to a different department. The Quality of Service within each VPN can be individually managed, preventing interference between them and allowing different data traffic volumes to be directed to each VPN, according to their needs.

“There has been a market shift with regards to Internet connectivity,” said Richard Smuts-Steyn, Chief Executive Officer of Multisource. “In the past Fiber-To-The-Home was seen as the utopia, especially since it was much faster and more versatile than legacy dial-up connections. But now people want to be able to connect to the Internet wherever they are. Being limited to one location, such as their desk, is no longer good enough. It’s all about the device, and about mobility”

Altai is also a good option for the incumbent mobile networks. “When mobile networks were first developed, the quantumn of data transmission via mobile phones was never anticipated – these networks were designed to carry voice and only small amounts of text and data,” Smuts-Steyn said.

“The Altai range allows for high capacity data offload onto a Wi-Fi network that not only reduces the data burden on the GSM infrastructure, but provides far higher throughputs than currently provided by even the 4G networks..”

Data throughput using super Wi-Fi is capable of transmitting up to 80 megabits per second, compared to 3G, with a capability of 10 megabits per second and basic ADSL, that has a capability of only 512 kilobits per second. The system is also very stable and reliable.

The Altai Super Wi-Fi System offers a total wireless solution comprising a base station, bridge, access point, customer-premises equipment, remote monitoring and configuration via access controller and wireless management solution.

Aside from its usefulness in urban public areas, businesses and other organisations, the Altai extended range can also bring cost effective data communications to rural communities, whose occupants by and large use mobile phones to access the Internet. Mobile network coverage of these areas is often very poor and the use of 3G is expensive due to high GSM cost structures.

“The hot zones created by the Altai range of Super Wifi devices have so many possible applications – we see this development as a giant leap forward for Wi-Fi and look forward to seeing how it can enhance South Africans’ online experiences,” Smuts-Steyn said.

For more information visit www.multisource.co.za