Altai Technologies Enables Taipei 101 & Macau Fisherman’s Wharf New Year’s Eve Countdown Super WiFi Services
Altai Technologies, a carrier-grade Super WiFi equipment supplier enabled Fitel, the BWA operator of Taiwan as well as CTM, mobile operator of Macau’s New Year’s Eve Countdown to provide Super WiFi services at Taipei 101 and Fisherman’s Wharf respectively.
For Taipei 101 event, the service operator built another high performance wireless broadband network to complement its existing WiMAX network so as to cope with the huge demand for mobile internet during New Year’s Eve. The WiFi network covered the streets around Taipei 101 with twenty-three units of Altai A8-Ei Base Stations deployed on the rooftops of buildings in the district to provide Super WiFi service. The network was built and turned into full service in less than 1 week.
In Macau, CTM integrated Altai’s Super WiFi Solution with their backend system to provide Super WiFi services for CTM’s countdown show at the Macau Fisherman’s Wharf show. CTM subscribers could simply use their existing usernames and passwords for accessing the Super WiFi network at the Macau Fisherman’s Wharf event. The WiFi network covered the area around the performance stage with two units of A8-Ei Super WiFi Base Stations and one unit of A2e WiFi Access Point deployed on the rooftop as well as the top of stage frame to support over three thousands visitors.
The New Year’s Eve countdown show in Macau Fisherman’s Wharf was a great success with many famous singers from Hong Kong and spectacular fireworks burst over the sky of Macau Fisherman’s Wharf to ring in the New Year at midnight.
Both events had attracted their subscribers sent their greetings to friends using the Super WiFi services.
Company Update
WiFi Hotzone Deployment: A8i installed in China Telecom Payphone Kiosk
Chinese operators are looking for innovative ways to offload the mobile Internet traffic demand by providing WiFi connectivity to their Smartphone users. The A8i Super WiFi base station has been installed at the top of payphone kiosk’s to provide WiFi coverage in the metropolitan area. The coverage area can also be extended inside the shops along the street.
This type of deployment is useful for building WiFi hotzones where there is high mobile traffic demand and there are provisions for Internet connection and power facilities. The site location of the payphone kiosk can be shared with the WiFi base station which simplifies site acquisition.
Tradeshow at a Glance
Altai Technologies @ Mobile World Congress & TOC Asia 2012
In March Altai participated at the Mobile World Congress Barcelona of Spain and the TOC Asia in Hong Kong .
At the Mobile World Congress, Altai showcased our most advanced 3G data offload solution – the hottest technology in town. Many visitors were attracted by this new solution and we conducted a live demonstration of this complete end-to-end 3G data offload solution.
For the TOC Asia 2012 in Hong Kong, Altai featured its custom-made application for container ports at the show. The Altai Super WiFi solution can overcome the challenges of container terminals such as complexity, high interference and heavy signal multipath at the berths as well as the constraints of the site facilities. More than 30 container terminals worldwide have deployed Altai’s Super WiFi solution. Altai will continue its efforts in developing stat-of-the-art wireless broadband technology for service operators.
Product Update
Altai Technologies Distributed Antenna System (DAS) WiFi Access Point Smartone Trial
The new DAS WiFi Access Point is the latest offering in the Altai Technologies product family. It combines the signals of GSM, 3G and CDMA together with 802.11n WiFi and transmits all the signals through an existing in-building Distributed Antenna System. With this setup, operators can offload their heavy 3G traffic via WiFi without any extra costs spent on new antenna infrastructure.
We have worked with Smartone, one of the leading Mobile Phone Service operators in Hong Kong, to carry out tests in Smartone’s office to prove how well this product works. Two DAS APs were installed at KITECC for the SmarTone trial. One DAS AP provided WiFi coverage for the office area while the other one provided WiFi coverage for the lounge.
For most of the 33 test points, laptops could obtain Signal Strength between -34dBm~-64dBm. Max client downlink and uplink throughput are shown below:
Max Data Rate
Max DL Throughput
Max UL Throughput
65Mbps
37.3Mbps
34.8Mbps
We also tested the throughput based on distance with the following results:
Distance (m)
DL throughput (Mbps)
UL throughput (Mbps)
RSSI
(dBm)
Ping
(loss %)
0
22.3
13.6
-50
0
5
31.5
20.1
-47
0
10
12.8
12.8
-53
0
15
3.8
2.7
-59
0
Smartone was impressed by the DAS WiFi AP and would like to carry the test to another stage, which is a commercial building full of visitors. From that we will know how well it performs when there are multiple users accessing the Internet through the DAS WiFi AP.
White Paper
The Altai A8n Series Super WiFi Base Station Improves 20X in Throughput Capacity over Standard 802.11g Access Points
Using the Altai patented Smart Antenna technologies, the brand new 802.11n A8n series Super WiFi base station not only provides 3 times the range coverage, but also 20 times the throughput at range as compared to standard 802.11g access points.
Of greater importance, when we compare the coverage performance of the two types of APs, the comparison only on their maximum throughput capability is not enough; we have to compare the throughput at every location within the coverage area. The Altai A8n provides on average 2 to 4 times higher throughput at range as compared to standard 802.11n access points, and the Altai A8-Ein with its integrated antenna array provides an even higher throughput ratio.
The use of 8x8 MIMO patented smart antenna technologies, which is technologically leading in the market, provides this distinctive throughput performance advantage. The benefits, unique features and technologies of the A8n series are explained in additional detail below.
Throughput Improved Dramatically
The A8n series operating in HT40 802.11n mode supports up to 300 Mbps data rate at 2 streams, which is greater than 5 times higher in data rate than a 54 Mbps 802.11g AP.
From the diagram below, we can see that the throughput of the A8n is 2 times (180 vs. 90 Mbps at around 50 m) to 4 times (120 vs. 30 Mbps at around 90 m) better on average than a standard 11n AP, particularly at the key mid ranges distances.
Combining the two results of the above, we can see that the A8n supports on average 10 to 20 times the throughput as compared to a 802.11g AP.
To obtain the same average throughput, 10 times the number of standard 11n AP’s need to be installed as compared to the A8n. Given that the coverage range of an A8n is 3 times that of a standard 11n AP this means the cost per throughput of the A8n is much lower and deployments using the A8n series are significantly more cost effective.
Efficient Bandwidth Control
The Altai “AirFi” technology will optimize the wireless bandwidth an average 3 times improvement of the client throughput and 2 times the system throughput.
The performance of AirFi can be seen most dramatically in networks where degradation is occurring due to low speed clients dragging down the overall system capacity.
5 GHz and 2.4 GHz Clients Supported Concurrently
The Dual Band Dual Concurrent (DBDC) feature of the A8n supports both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz clients operating simultaneously under one base station.
User Capacity Doubled
The A8n supports up to 512 concurrent users, which is double the user capacity of the 802.11a/b/g A8 series.
Additional Built-in Deployment Tools
To simplify deployment and maintenance, the following features are integrated in the A8n:
Iperf throughput test utility
2.4 GHz and 5 GHz channel scan
Automatic and manual channel selection
Time-of-date channel scheduling
Leading Smart Antenna Technologies
8x8 MIMO patented smart antenna technologies – provides significantly greater performance over standard 2x2 or 3x3 MIMO standard AP’s in terms of better multi-path tolerance, better SNR, lower packet error, higher antenna diversity, higher RF link budget, increased link reliability, improved interference tolerance and reduced interference generation.
Integrated 8x8 MIMO sector antenna array – the A8-Ein, the single sector coverage version of the A8n, has a range up to 1.7 km, providing a footprint that matches a 3G base station in urban areas. It is designed for 3G base station co-location for long range high capacity 3G data offload applications. It is equipped with the necessary RF filtering to prevent interference from or interference to the 3G base station even when co-located at the same site.
