Jul 30, 2013

At Firetide we’re constantly being pulled into debates about the parameters that customers use to make their networking decisions.  Network speed, throughput rates, node density, size of mesh network – every vendor in the private wireless broadband space can manipulate these categories to fit their capabilities.

These spec wars are further complicated when you bring mobility into the equation:  speed and re-association rates…both node-to-node and mesh-to-mesh. Is it  <4 milliseconds? <1 millisecond? …in what conditions did you achieve those numbers and was that in a test environment or in your real-world customer environment?  Was the data un-encrypted or encrypted?

Create your own wireless network shopping guide

Rather than get sidelined in spec wars and letting the vendor stack the deck, we advise customers to take control of their requirements by building their own consumer’s guide. We recommend stack ranking the five pre-requisites of your wired network: performance, reliability, scalability, manageability and security.  Your wireless solution needs to include every one of those criteria. The order of this ranking—and the importance you give each category—is up to you.

Mobility application places unique demands

Once you’ve determined your core requirements and narrowed the playing field, it’s time to address the unique needs of your mobile wireless applications (e.g. in a metro rail application or a city-wide metro bus system). First, the same priorities that define your wired network must be met with your wireless network. And then your solution provider must address critical mobility needs, such as:

• Load balancing across connected vehicles at crowded transportation hubs.
• mesh to mesh roaming;
• Extensibility – will the mobile wireless installed in your metro transport also extend to your city’s light rail system? Can you just add nodes to an installed based and deliver mobility at key points on a static surveillance infrastructure? How much can I grow with my current management and controller equipment?

Bottom line: at the end the day, it’s YOUR network, not your vendor’s. Determine your real-world needs and then measure your vendors by: a) how well they try to understand your network, and b) how they measure up, not by their standards but by yours.