Xirrus

There's been a lot of misquotation, rumours and plain rubbish talked about us recently, specifically about one of our sites where we have solved an issue where others failed. This is spread by competitors who can't compete on technical level, so they start using fear, uncertainty and doubt. The customer has posted to clear any confusion up on another thread. Interesting reading for anyone looking to do capacity. http://www.edugeek.net/forums/bsf/14672-bsf-wasting-money-before-we-start.html Thanks Ben

A bit of a guess would be that you have one AP set in a channel the laptop wifi card either isn't capable or isn't set to see. Eg do you have one set to an 802.11a channel and the client is 802.11bg only? Or do you have an ap set to channel 13 yet the country code on the wifi card can only see channels 1 to 11?

BTW Neil, I believe you are at one of my 2 old schools as I went to school in the Market Rasen/Caistor area - I'd love the opportunity to come and talk to you about the Wifi if you would be gracious enough to let me. Thanks Ben

I know the exact site you are talking about and apologise if you feel this was a bad experience. Firstly, we were informed that client devices were 802.11abg - there were 802.11a ap's in the network onsite which were not in use (although live) because when we investigated the client devices they were 802.11bg only. This means that to cover the number of clients in that one area there were 3 available channels (1,6,11). We were also informed that the test was to only cover 2 classrooms hence why an XN4 was supplied. Once it was shown that we needed to cover the entire floor then we specified an XN8 which at the extremes of the entire floor provides an RSSI of -65db. Also the location of the cable run for the test was around 40ft away from the correct location. Using b/g only the test was poor - as it was with 2 other manufacturers (including single channel architecture) because of the physics of the environment and number of clients. The school has now purchased 802.11agn cards (PCMCIA) and we are testing again next week and expect to be very successful this time. Our networks are always designed to use a mix of clients for density situations as this is the only way to create more bandwidth. To create more bandwidth you need more radios. To have more non-interfering radios in the air you require use of the full wifi spectrum of 2.4ghz and 5ghz (802.11abgn). We will test better than anyone else once the new clients are in place as we will be providing more available bandwidth. Again I am sorry if you could not get hold of our guy, but we continue to work with the customer to create the correct solution for them. In the interests of transparency I will post results of this testing (successful or unsuccessful) when it is completed. Thanks Ben

It could have been 1 array per building and a basic coverage survey if capacity wasn't an issue. Every site is different hence why we do a real life site survey and guarantee our work. Ben

Thanks Tom - All our techs are multi-purposed, as are our Sales people (Sales also are fully tech trainined and capable of surveys, design, install and support). Generally the same Tech will provide survey, design, installation and support so each site has a continuity that most people don't get.

I fully take your point on board - biggest doesn't always mean best. However our team is split with at least 2 Technical Staff to each Sales person, meaning our customers get ontime, local support from people involved with the site and direct from the vendor even though we are deliver through the channel. We deliver a indirect fulfillment with direct touch model to make sure our customers always get the best support. I even print all my contact details so anyone can call me! Thanks Ben

If you need anything just let me know - always here to help. Thanks Ben

I'd also be fascinated to hear this - the only school in Lincoln I know that we had a unit in was fine once the array had been located correctly. Initially it was placed not in the location that was shown by our survey, but in a convenient location for testing. We then heard very little and were told it didn't work. I then visited and tested with an Array in the right location and proved coverage was excellent (even in an artroom, through 2 more 1930's heavy brick walls) but the decision was that there was no budget...... Thanks Ben

Quite frankly what is written above is simply untrue. I personally surveyed, managed and oversaw the installation at BBA and was even doing a reference visit there last week. Hundreds of users get on without issue everyday, and based on the success of the xirrus system they are adding another 200 or so users in September. Our support is excellent and we now have the biggest team in the UK for a Wireless Specific vendor. I have asked the customer to post on here so everyone can here straight tom the horses mouth so to speak. Btw a recent support call of the "failure" of 2 xirrus units turned out to be the managed service provider disabling the switch ports they were plugged in to..... Thanks Ben

Hi Sam - As a vendor we have deployed in many schools in the Hampshire area. We are the only vendor to offer ae Free Real Life Site Survey and a 100% coverage guarantee. My details are below in my signature - please feel free to contact me so I can provide you with references and get you in touch with our guy who covers Hants. Thanks Ben

My name is Ben Wilson and I am the UK Country Manager for Xirrus. We've just started to sponsor this networks forum and have a thread introducing ourselves and our product. We have many hundreds of education sites across the UK and many thousands across the world using our high performance WiFi Arrays. We are the only wireless vendor to off a Free Real Life Active Site Survey and a 100% Coverage Guarantee. We work with nearly all the main education partners in the UK and outperform all other wireless equipment in terms of coverage and capacity on a per devices basis. If you would like to know more, I would be more than happy to discuss detail and competitive landscape with you. Thanks Ben

Good to see there are so many suggestions out there. At Xirrus, we will provide a free full real life site survey and then supply a quote. We then back it up with a 100% coverage guarantee meaning that if more units are required than we say, we will supply them free of charge. We also do free installation, training and configuration. Feel free to get in touch and also check out the new thread we started yesterday as sponsors of this forum. Many Thanks Ben

If you are budgeting for a managed, enterprise class wifi system then we will fit in that budget. If you sned me contact details we can have chat, then i can get some budgetary figures together for you. Thanks Ben

I've got a couple of sites running 600+ Asus netbooks with full 802.11n, WPA2/AES without issue. What card models and drivers are you running and I'd be happy to compare?

We certainly are! It will be our 3rd year at the show and we will have a ground floor stand. I'll update this with details as they are available. Many thanks for the positive comments. One thing I hope everyone will understand and appreciate about Xirrus is our transparency and the fact we always do the right thing by the customer. More than happy to field any questions anyone has. Ben

BTW Everyone - we started this forum with Xirrus are proud, when maybe it should have been Xirrus is proud. Apologies for this grammatical error for the many who (or should that be whom??) have emailed us to point it out.......we will change it. Apologies. Ben

Hi David, Great questions. Firstly yes we do support 802.3ad link aggregation as well as active back up, mirroring and bridging across our dual Gig Ethernet ports. There is a road map for our XN4 product to support 802.3at by the end of the year, but we supply our own Power over Gigabit Ethernet injectors (also used by other manufacturers) to support the power needed for multiple 802.11n radios currently on all of our devices. Not only does this mean the switch ports for your wireless will not need to be PoE (cost saving) but our increased coverage means you will require approx 75% fewer of them. Total Emitted power from our radios is the same as any one else, however because we use high gain directional antennas, we can both "listen" and "talk" further. Increased coverage means useable signal strength. Our guarantee matches whatever the customer requirements are. if its for performance data then we guarantee an RSSI of -72dbm - if its for voice and data then we survey and guarantee to what is required, typically an RSSI value of between -65dbm and -68dbm dependent on client equipment. All of our antennas/radios overlap by 50% meaning there are no "dead spots", even in the unlikely event of a radio failing (we have a MTBF of over 8 years). Imagine our channel planning like trivial pursuit counter - because we are able to control the RF better, we are able to get more non interfering radios in the air. We are also able to load balance across radios and arrays meaning we can design to have multiple radios covering everywhere, allowing support of more simultaneous users and providing more available bandwidth. We use non-interfering channels utilizing the full spectrum of 2.4Ghz (802.11b/g/n) and 5Ghz (802.11a/n). Our guarantee is simple. We will survey and tell you how many devices are needed for what you require (data, voice/data, RFID etc). If any more devices are need than we say, we will supply the units free of charge. You are not restricted by a controller or licensing, therefore you can scale as quickly or as slowly as you require, meaning phased deployments are easier. We still do full centralised management for those who want it, giving you full monitoring, command and control of your wireless network, but without the bottleneck or reliability constraints of a controller. Think of how the mobile phone business developed. When they first deployed cell technology they had single or dual radios with omni directional antennas as they had few users disparately spread out. As they have needed to increase coverage and capacity they have moved to multiple radio, high gain directional antenna system on their towerrs to provide more bandwidth, coverage and throughput. This is because in reality it is the only way to do this. Simply put, more radios = more bandwidth and more users. At the end of the day, if the RF isn't designed correctly, wireless will never work to its potential. Our product has been designed from the ground up to solve the issue of user density - that's why you will find us successfully deployed in the most user dense environments in the world, like education. Total Cost of ownership is normally less than that of our competitors when everything is accounted for, but on a per device basis we would appear to be more expensive. When you take into account the saving on switches, cabling, professional services and the 100% guarantee, then we are normally much better value. Would you like us to come and do a survey and show our capabilities? Thanks Ben

Thanks Carl for the clrification - I'd be happy to do a comparison test on your site. Please check out the independent Tolly report on our website.

Please do not confuse number of antennas with number of radios but an interesting comparison! We provide 4,8,12,16 or 24 radios in each device, giving more bandwidth and supporting more users.

I would be pleased to speak at the Edugeek conference - no problem!

Hi David, Firstly, please excuse if this sounds like a sales pitch, but this is the best way to describe our product. Also apologies for any typo's etc. Our array is designed with 4,8 12, 16 or 24 radios, using directional antennas and integrated 2Gbps switch. These means that on a per device basis we deliver at least twice the range, four times the coverage and eight times the bandwidth of any other wifi device out there. Just ask our customers in the UK. For example Liverpool Womens Hospital were quoted in excess of 130 standard dual radio access points plus controllers to cover their hospital. We surveyed and gave them a guaranteed RSSI of -70 using just 27 of our Arrays. On average we reuqire 75% fewer devices, cale runs and swicth ports as well as offering savings on power. We also provide a free real life site survey and 100% coverage guarantee as well as Free Installation, Training and Post Site Survey Verification Alder Hey Childrens Hospital were looking at in excess of 1200 Ap's........we covered the site in just 200 of our Arrays saving them 1000 cable runs, switch ports etc etc We have many examples in the UK of high user density: At Bristol Brunel Academy we replaced a failing controller/standard AP deployment which could not cope with 600 netbooks all logging on simultaneously every morning. We did this with just 23 of our XN4 arrays and are not even scratching the potential capacity as they plan to go to 900 users shortly in a 1:1 laptop initiative. Microsoft use a controller/Thin AP solution for their offices where they have small user numbers disparately spread across their offices. For user density areas where they have 1000's of users in the small area all demanding connectivity they use us (Microsoft Developer Conference - video interview with Microsoft available on Xirrus: Switching Without Wires). Many products can cope with just coverage, but capacity with multiple users is where we excel. We also have a distributed architecture as opposed to centralized one. This mean that like a switch network, we put the intelligence at the edge and remove the single point of failure of a controller, and also the bottleneck. How about we come and give you a product walkthrough and demonstration? If you visit our website (Xirrus: Switching Without Wires) you can see Tolly independently verified our coverage and density and the fact that our distributed architecture improves network performance and dramatically reduces overhead on your Wired Network. If you would like to know more or would like me to arrange a product demo/walkthrough, please don't hesitate to contact me. Ben

Hi my name is Ben Wilson, I am the UK Country Manager for Xirrus. I have over 10 years experience in designing, managing and deploying IT networks, and have personally deployed over a 1000 Wi-Fi networks in all manner of environments from critical high availability health care solutions to challenging environmental environments such as music festivals. I have worked at all levels in the deployment chain – from Vendor to End User and everything in between including senior roles at TNS (now BTiNet) and CSI. Xirrus is a proud sponsor of Edugeek. Xirrus, the only Wi-Fi "Power-Play", manufacturers the Wi-Fi Array that displaces both overlay Wi-Fi offerings and switched Ethernet to the desktop. The Wi-Fi Array provides more than enough bandwidth, security, and control to replace switched Ethernet as a user’s primary network connection. The Xirrus Wi-Fi Array delivers the most coverage, bandwidth, throughput, and user density in the industry, resulting in 75% fewer devices, cabling, switch ports, power, space, and installation time compared with any other Wi-Fi offering. We provide real life active site surveys and back them up with coverage guarantees – taking the risk away from our customers! Please feel free to ask any questions about our products or services Thanks Ben!