Tanaza, in collaboration with Plume® and ConnectUs Technologies, started the Open WiFi System project in 2019, through the Telecom Infra Project (TIP). 

The project was officially announced at TIP Summit ’19 in Amsterdam.

Launched in February 2016, TIP is a collaborative telecom community that is evolving the infrastructure that underpins global connectivity. TIP’s mission is to accelerate the pace of innovation in next generation telecom networks, through the design, build, test and deployment of standards-based, open and disaggregated network solutions. Over the past four years TIP has driven substantial innovation across all elements of the network including Access, Transport, Core & Services, while spanning urban through to rural market use cases.

Tanaza joined TIP’s Wi-Fi Project Group in early 2019, and has contributed with technology and experience in hardware and software disaggregation.

The Open Wi-Fi System project aims at contributing to hardware and software disaggregation.

Tanaza believes that hardware and software disaggregation and, ultimately, White-Box Wi-Fi access points is the way to lower total cost of ownership (TCO) in Wi-Fi deployments and hence involve and connect more and more people.  To this end, Tanaza, Plume, and ConnectUs have demonstrated the compatibility of their respective cloud-based Wi-Fi controller platform with TIP’s open-AP software stack including the open-source framework OpenSync™. Thanks to this project, any TIP Open Access Point, supporting an OpenSync interface, could be associated with the Tanaza or the Plume or the ConnectUs Technologies cloud platform, or any other cloud stacks available.

What is OpenSync?

OpenSync is the world’s fastest-growing cloud-agnostic, open-source software to enable the curation, delivery and support of services and management of devices for the smart home. Today OpenSync carries more than 62 Petabytes of data over its platform every day connecting over half a billion devices, spanning some 1000 device brands and over 7000 unique device types, and these numbers are exponentially growing. Compatible with other initiatives such as RDK and OpenWRT, and broadly deployed by leading global ISPs and device makers, the software is critical to residential and enterprise Wi-Fi and IP delivered services. Chipset suppliers, device makers, system integrators, internet service providers and operators find many benefits with OpenSync’s open, interoperable, multi-vendor interfaces and simple and efficient scaling on a proven platform.

“Nowadays, the technology stacks used by operators to deploy Wi-Fi do not communicate with each other. As a consequence, executing mass configurations, maintaining and troubleshooting the networks, and the deployment of new applications demand an extremely high effort. Disaggregation solves this problem by allowing the cloud software to speak with White-Box Wi-Fi access points, that increases operational efficiency. In addition, disaggregation allows reducing the total cost of ownership for operators by bringing down both the cost of Wi-Fi hardware (CAPEX) and the costs of maintenance (OPEX)”, states Sebastiano Bertani, CEO, and Founder of Tanaza.

Tanaza joined forces with the other members of the TIP Project Group, to validate how hardware and software components work together and to ensure those components are interoperable. The access point firmware will be open-sourced within TIP, in addition to some parts of the controller software. As a result, this will significantly lower the barrier to entry for new vendors participating in the ecosystem.

A first demo test of Open Wi-Fi system is now a reality.

“This new concept of open WiFi system, it’s something huge working together with such players to fully support them in this path, and partner with them to reach more service providers that want to take advantage of the opportunities that open WiFi systems can offer. We’re working hard to make this happen by using our knowledge and technologies. A first demo test case featuring the interoperability of White-Box Wi-Fi hardware with both the Plume and Tanaza cloud stacks is ready. We are thrilled!” says Cristian Piacente, CTO at Tanaza.

Tanaza is dedicated to make hardware and software disaggregation in Wi-Fi a reality.