Monday, July 2nd 2012
New Solution For ISPs Makes Home Wi-Fi Network Accessible From Anywhere
Anyfi Networks today announced the general availability of their flagship Wi-Fi mobility solution for Internet service providers, Anyfi.net Simple. "We call it Simple because it's so simple to use: there is absolutely nothing the subscriber needs to do to connect on the go, not even the first time. It's like having your home Wi-Fi network follow you around wherever you go" said Johan Almbladh, CTO of Anyfi Networks. "There is no software to install on the device and no manual registration process. If you have connected your device to Wi-Fi at home it will connect automatically whenever you are close to any one of the ISPs residential gateways."
The trick is combining Wi-Fi with IP, Internet Protocol, to break the tie between logical network and physical access point, effectively letting every subscriber access their own home Wi-Fi remotely, through any residential gateway in the ISPs network."Our patent pending software, embedded in the residential gateway firmware, listens on the radio for mobile devices. When one is detected the software creates a 'virtual access point' that is indistinguishable from the visitors own home access point. The mobile device will connect to this virtual access point automatically and, when it does, we simply tunnel the raw Wi-Fi radio traffic over the Internet to the visitors own home gateway, where the device can be authenticated using the standard WPA2 security mechanism" explained Johan Almbladh. "Not only do you get a completely seamless user experience but you also get perfect end-to-end security."
The company has been trialing the solution with select Internet service providers for over a year and now claims it is ready for prime time. "The challenge has been in implementing support for all the Wi-Fi chipsets commonly used in residential gateways. Now we have verified the solution on chipsets from the three main vendors in this space. This means we can quickly integrate the software in just about any residential gateway and are ready to start working with more ISPs and residential gateway vendors" said Björn Smedman, CEO of Anyfi Networks.
While this managed solution is targeted at ISPs that can remotely update the firmware in their residential gateways the technology as such is available to anyone. "Our goal is to create an open technology platform," said Björn Smedman. "Our software is available to all residential gateway vendors under a no-charge royalty-free license, and evaluation firmware images can be downloaded from our website."
The trick is combining Wi-Fi with IP, Internet Protocol, to break the tie between logical network and physical access point, effectively letting every subscriber access their own home Wi-Fi remotely, through any residential gateway in the ISPs network."Our patent pending software, embedded in the residential gateway firmware, listens on the radio for mobile devices. When one is detected the software creates a 'virtual access point' that is indistinguishable from the visitors own home access point. The mobile device will connect to this virtual access point automatically and, when it does, we simply tunnel the raw Wi-Fi radio traffic over the Internet to the visitors own home gateway, where the device can be authenticated using the standard WPA2 security mechanism" explained Johan Almbladh. "Not only do you get a completely seamless user experience but you also get perfect end-to-end security."
The company has been trialing the solution with select Internet service providers for over a year and now claims it is ready for prime time. "The challenge has been in implementing support for all the Wi-Fi chipsets commonly used in residential gateways. Now we have verified the solution on chipsets from the three main vendors in this space. This means we can quickly integrate the software in just about any residential gateway and are ready to start working with more ISPs and residential gateway vendors" said Björn Smedman, CEO of Anyfi Networks.
While this managed solution is targeted at ISPs that can remotely update the firmware in their residential gateways the technology as such is available to anyone. "Our goal is to create an open technology platform," said Björn Smedman. "Our software is available to all residential gateway vendors under a no-charge royalty-free license, and evaluation firmware images can be downloaded from our website."
33 Comments on New Solution For ISPs Makes Home Wi-Fi Network Accessible From Anywhere
This same idea is how we receive wireless internet with Ubiquiti "bullet" P2P systems with VPN enabled, and most new smart devices support VPN, with their own authentication and encryption setup that seems more secure than WPA/WPA2 (as just an example, however once at the terminating point you can create wifi access points.)
New package for a product, and it seems to be an alternate to using cloud storage whcih already has a foot hold and is a growing market.
Just the question is it cheaper to transmit data twice or more and buy more new hardware, or store data and build software?
I think it's a great idea, been hoping to see this for a long time now..
PS: Since when was anyones internet "secure"? lol..
there is nothing said about the bandwidth usage on the hosting wi fi modem/router installed in the subscriber's home which a guest is accessing who ends up paying that usage bill and how would it affect my isp bandwidth usage and download capping
Important information for potential Host
For your other questions please see the FAQ anyfi.net/faq.
""Anyfi.net software carefully and constantly measures and prioritizes both bandwidth and spectrum use. Whenever there is a risk that the primary function of the access point (e.g. to provide home Wi-Fi to a residential subscriber) may be impacted by a visiting user the software will automatically throttle the visitor to prevent such impact. We call it spectrum aware traffic prioritization and it's very important, especially when the visitor has a poor radio link and may otherwise consume a lot of spectrum. ""
So they are using my bandwidth and i would be paying for their use of my Bandwidth
with no compensation for my costs
Nice of you to dodge answering my question by referring me to the faq
This Software will never be installed on any equipment i own and i would actively disuade anyone i know from using it or any equipment its installed in
"This Software Steals from the Residential gateway owner"
:banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead:
I do however understand the problems inherent in that. Most notably the fact that the raw 802.11 frames must travel to the "guest" router in some way - presumably the user's internet connection. Which, due to them being encapsulated in UDP, will be seen by the user's ISP as normal internet traffic - incurring a cost for the PU.
Also, I do not know the exact capabilities of current routers to do spectrum sensing, but I hope the de-prioritizing algorithm is sufficient to ensure the PU's spectrum isn't occupied entirely by SU traffic. That will be disastrous.
Will need to look into the docs to get a full idea of the technology though. ;)
EDIT: Seems the bandwidth issue is resolved the moment SPs buy into this since they can't install anyfi software on their routers unless they implement a service based cost model instead of a data based one.
Like all of the SPs here in South Africa...