The Convenience of Wireless Mesh Networking
Written by Ferdinand Ma, the Product Manager for UAE at TP-Link MEA FZE
In a time where most of us are home, the collective load on network connectivity has grown exponentially, with different people wanting to stay connected for different reasons, and more often than not, in different parts of our house. Whether you’re working from home, or binge-watching a web series, or playing real-time games with friends, or learning new recipes from online cooking channels, or following a fitness instructor’s do-alongside routine, you need the entire space to be well-connected.
More so, if each member of the household is engaged in these kinds of activities around the same time and these are the needs of a single modern house currently, imagine what the networking requirements of organizations these days would be. This is where a wireless mesh network comes in – with a massive scope of making everything convenient, seamless, and productive for all parties.
A wireless mesh network is basically a communication network spread out across several wireless mesh nodes that are designed to inter-communicate and share the same network across a large geographical area. These wireless mesh networking technologies offer a significant advantage over traditional wireless networks since they render the need for ethernet cables or any form of physical wiring (except for the source node).
A wireless mesh network is a smart and self-configuring one that can carry out the integration of new mesh nodes automatically without network administration. Organizations operating in the wireless mesh network industry are offering innovative new products with easy setup and app-based network management features, and 2019 saw the product segment dominate the market. The market growth is resulting from the booming increase in the global adoption of wireless mesh networks that can be attributed to their strong network capabilities like faster data transmission and easier network deployment, amongst others.
These networks ensure that the problem of a single point of failure can be automatically detected because if and when one node can no longer operate, the network is equipped with the ability to reroute – enabling it to keep communication between the remaining nodes intact other upcoming use cases include operating in areas with large crowds like concerts and music festivals, and connecting devices in remote areas and underground public transport like mountains and subways, among many more. It works with minimal infrastructure, which means it can be deployed faster than traditional infrastructure, and at a significantly reduced cost, too.
The increasing popularity of smart gadgets is acting as a catalyst in escalating the demand for the Internet of Things (IoT) devices in the future. A magnanimous number of organisations are anticipated to be jumping on the IoT bandwagon and ‘over-implementing’ the technology in an effort to streamline existing operations. Mesh wireless networking technologies will be a transformational solution for smart homes.
