Steve Jobs is a master at showmanship–not just in his presentations, but with the products his company, Apple, creates. A goal that was seen in the original Macintosh but taken to near completion with the iPhone and iPad, Apple has sought to completely own the user experience, integrating various parts together into a seamless package where every detail has a purpose. And his successes have shown that this vision is right; it’s the user experience that matters, not what cool features this component or that can do.
Only one thing stands in the way of Jobs’ vision of owning the user experience: the network. Apple doesn’t build networks. AT&T does, and that is well and good when the user is on the move, but their network is getting overloaded, causing them to eliminate all-you-can-eat data plans as a result. What Apple needed to rescue the user experience is a successful Wi-Fi network to carry that experience over. And, as we saw on Monday with the unveiling of the iPhone 4, that one Wi-Fi network had Jobs jumping from the frying pan into the fire. ‘Please turn off all electronic equipment that uses Wi-Fi’, you expect to hear on an airplane before departure, but never at an iPhone unveiling.
But this isn’t Apple’s fault. Nor is this an instance of the best laid plans going awry. Nor is this a problem with relying on Wi-Fi. Apple is correct, and Wi-Fi is the right technology. But what was missing from that unveiling, and is missing from most networks today, is the ability to rely on wireless like we have relied on wires.
We are on the cusp of a change in the way wireless networks work. Until now, people have though of Wi-Fi as a convenience. ‘If it works, I’m happy, but if it doesn’t, then I’ll just hop back to 3G cellular or plug in,’ the thinking goes. But you can’t go back now. Wi-Fi is pretty much everywhere, and everyone is looking to it to make sure it works, no excuses.
This is where the generational shift in WLANs comes into play. Existing WLAN technology for enterprises, conference centers, and hot spots is simply not designed to provide predictable service. These ‘microcell’ WLAN infrastructure architectures themselves are simply not created to provide stable, predictable service. They change and tune and adjust, usually keeping you on the road but swinging from lane to lane and making the passengers carsick in the process. They are what you would expect early-generation technologies to be: full of pitfalls, such as when you get a group of excited bloggers into one room to watch Steve Jobs work his magic.
Ethernet wired networks had the same problem, interestingly enough. When hubs ruled the IT planet, you could never count on a predictable user experience. Rather, it was like the weather: too much congestion here lead to a ‘rain out’ of the network there, and if you simply hide under an awning for a few minutes, it will soon pass and the network will clear out again. The networking industry solved that problem with the introduction of the switch: predictability in a box. Switches don’t change their behavior unless you ask them to. They deliver the same experience day-in, day-out, because they are designed to take over the free-for-all congestion of the hub into an orderly, left-right-left-right stream of data. Users don’t have to have a clue they exist: hubs and switches look alike on the outside. But on the inside, the chaos gives way to order.
So too must wireless go. Eliminate the chaos, bring the congestion into the network and seize control of it. Give each user her own dedicated experience, on her own dedicated wireless “port”. Virtualize the density away into one seamless, coherent pool of wireless, ready to be served up to whatever latest application that comes from the App Store without disrupting other users, no matter where that phone goes. Simply put, go from wirless hubs to “switches”.
That’s what Meru does. It’s our founding principle and we stick to it. Wireless networks are not that expensive compared to the cost of disappointing users and killing apps. But they had better work. “So much is riding on your tires,” Michelin says. And so much is riding on your network, we say. If you don’t believe us, try us out. If you do believe us (meaning you did try us out already), then ask us how we can make your network just work.
