Wi-Fi Technology is Due for a Major Paradigm Shift Toward More Scalable Solutions -- Jon Walkenhorst, CTO Technicolor Connected HomeBy: Technicolor This is an issue that will be most acutely felt in multi-dwelling units (MDUs) and high density areas. "When consumers in apartments are feeling the pain of poor Wi-Fi, they go to their local retailer and buy a three-pack of access points and extenders, then take them home and plug them in," he says. "By doing so, they've just added three new radios where there were too many radios already. They don't know the difference. They're just trying to address a signal-loss problem — when in reality, the problem is too much signal." Consumers' Wi-Fi woes then create problems for service providers, Walkenhorst says. "Consumers might not know the difference between Wi-Fi and broadband. So, they call in and say 'my network is down,' or 'my network is slow.' And every minute spent on a call is very expensive for the service provider." To address these problems Technicolor is working on a new paradigm for W-Fi. "We are focusing our two- to three-year plan for Wi-Fi on the idea of a self-optimizing network, or SON, enabling the network to tell the end device what the best network is for it to connect with," Walkenhorst says. "It may be the network in the home; it may be the network in the home next door; it may be network across the street. "At Technicolor, we have already begun development of the next generation of wireless management. We are calling it Wi-Fi Scaler. Our development plans started with our Wi-Fi Doctor program, our diagnostics tool. The second step we call Conductor, the ability to manage the devices, connecting them to the proper radios." "The third step is to aggregate the data collected by Doctor and bundle that with an encryption solution. We already have trials and a customer running Wi-Fi Doctor. We will have Conductor out on trial within a few months, and then we can begin trials of Wi-Fi Scaler with these same customers." Technicolor's Wi-Fi solutions will be on display at NAB 2017 in Last Vegas. To read the full Q&A with Walkenhorst, or listen to the podcast interview visit: http://thefuturetrust.technicolor.com/ Journalists and analysts are free to pull quotes from this Q&A feature with attribution in media and market reports. For more details and context, contact: Lane Cooper +1 323 817 7547 Lane.cooper@ Andre Rodriguez +1 323 817 6716 andre.rodriguez@ Jayne Garfitt Proactive PR +44 7788 315587 jayne.garfitt@ Photo: https://www.prlog.org/ End
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