Multicap: Your Partner for a Wireless Future

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Devoxx: where wireless dreams became reality!

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Devoxx: where wireless dreams became reality!

Devoxx: Where wireless dreams become reality!

High density, high bandwidth, high availability

You have seen the Meru WLAN500TM, now see the real-life example we made at the Devoxx conference: 3000 IT visitors from 40 countries with multiple wireless devices seated in 6 adjacent rooms of maximum 30  by 25 m with groups of 400 to 750 users, all wanting to connect to the Internet simultaneously...

The result:

  • - A maximum of 104 clients per wireless interface
  • - An average of 51.33 clients per wireless interface
  • - Layered architecture with up to 9 channels and a potential throughput of 2.1Gbps per room
  • - 2539 unique wireless users
  • - And over 3000 smiling faces...

Devoxx conference

The Devoxx conference is the biggest yearly Java community conference in Europe being held in the Metropolis cinema complex in Antwerp. Devoxx is the European version of the JavaOne conference in the US and attracts close to 3000 visitors from over 40 countries and hosts 110 speakers over 5 days of conference. All these visitors are developers equipped with a multitude of wireless gear and the knowledge to (mis-)use it.

Stephan Janssen, founder of Devoxx and BeJUG summarizes: "The last couple of years, WiFi access became indispensable for us. Nonetheless, finding a reliable wireless solution has proven to be more difficult than we thought."

 Devoxx room view

Providing a fair and high speed wireless access to thousands of users, all packed together in small theater rooms is not that obvious. Moreover, these users tend to use the network all together at the same time! In order to achieve this, Meru Networks was used for the wireless equipment and Barracuda Networks for the fire-walling, link balancing and traffic shaping. The Internet access was based upon 6 VDSL lines providing up to 120-150Mbps of Internet traffic in total. In the largest rooms, where up to 750 people could and did sit and use the network, 6 of Meru's AP311, Meru's dual radio 802.11n access point (11bg + 11an), were installed. The smaller rooms with up to 426 seats were equipped with 4 AP311. Doing this with any other wireless gear would result in an enormous interference. Thanks to Meru's Virtual Cell and Virtual Port technology, channels could be stacked in every room for the highest capacity and performance while still maintaining the single channel concept over the entire complex and delivering load balancing within the channel and even in between channels for the best result!

Network layout

This channel stacking results in an incredible 1.2Gbps (about 700Mbps net) of wireless throughput available in the large rooms that could have even been 'upgraded' to a stunning 2.1Gbps (about 1.4Gbps net) with the same amount of hardware if it would have been needed!

Stephan comments: "Our attendees have never been this enthusiastic about the wireless network! It all worked flawless! A big thank you to the wireless design of Multicap"

 room seen from behind

To summarize one week of realizing wireless dreams at Devoxx:

  • 2539 unique wireless users
  • A maximum of 1389 simultaneous, active wireless users
  • A maximum of 104 users on one wireless interface
  • An average of 51,33 clients per wireless interface
  • A peak internet throughput of 141Mbps