Newly published guide to creating Multimedia-Grade Networks helps organizations understand and enhance voice and video performance over Wi-Fi networks
SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--With user numbers, applications and mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets increasing on what seems to be an unstoppable basis, and with voice and video making up a large portion of a rapidly growing global network traffic load, deciding what to do from a network perspective can be difficult. A new cross-industry consortium, the Multimedia-Grade Working Group, seeks to help businesses design and deploy multimedia-grade networks and today announced the publication of a guide to do just that.
"The demand being placed on Wi-Fi networks is increasing at a blistering pace," said David Morton, director of mobile communications at the University of Washington. "Handheld devices like the iPhone and iPad now account for nearly a third of all devices that are using Wi-Fi on campus. At the same time we are seeing a mobile app explosion that has transformed how people use the network. Gone are the days when a typical user might occasionally check email on a laptop. Users now do everything from streaming media to video chat to placing phone calls while mobile, and expect all of that to work no matter where they are."
The group, which counts SAP, Spherion, Verizon Wireless and a number of leading universities among its founding members, has come together to define requirements for multimedia-grade networks. Recommendations resulting from the group's work will be shared with and proposed for integration with the activities of the Wi-Fi Alliance, the industry's leading standards body.
"The Multimedia-Grade Working Group is made up of a cross-industry consortium of technology companies, enterprises and educational organizations interested in staying ahead of new developments in the network industry and, specifically, the mobile edge," said Brad Noblet, president of BN Consulting, who previously served as Dartmouth CIO and chairs the group. "Most notably, organizations are undergoing a monumental shift to mobile handheld devices like the iPad, iPhone, 'Droid, etc. One of the members mentioned that more than 25 percent of the devices on their campus were now mobile handheld devices. How will a network scale to support this shift? What types of applications are most common? To what extent should we be allowing these to connect on our network? What issues have arisen so far? These are the types of things we're focused on discussing and developing recommendations for."
With the ratification of the IEEE 802.11n Wi-Fi standard in late 2009, wireless network performance increased greatly, from the 54 megabits per second (Mbps)of throughput enabled by 802.11g to up to 150 Mbps made possible with 802.11n. The increase in speed was only a small part of the shift.
More information about the Multimedia-Grade Working Group and its progress is available here: http://www.multimediagrade.com.
The working group's paper, A Blueprint for Multimedia-Grade Wi-Fi, is available here: http://multimediagrade.blogspot.com/p/blueprint-for-multimedia-grade-wi-fi.html.
Working Group Chair
Brad Noblet, 603-674-8662
bnoblet@gmail.com