News & Events

EION LAUNCHES CLOUD-BASED WI-FI CONTROLLER FOR SCALABLE WLAN

OTTAWA Canada – December 9, 2013 - EION Wireless, a global manufacturer of licensed and unlicensed broadband wireless access and backhaul products headquartered in Ottawa, Canada is pleased to announce the release of StarCommander - a powerful cloud-based controller compatible with 3rd party access points and EION’s StarAccess products. EION’s StarCommander is a highly scalable system designed to serve the needs of internet service providers, enterprises, schools, hospitals, university campuses, hotels, airports, conference centers and public buildings. StarCommander gives operators the ability to manage subscribers through pre-paid cards and create free public Wi-Fi zones with a captive portal page, or permit secure access to permanent users and BYOD devices.

“IceNet Wireless is taking an innovate approach to providing broadband access by deploying a giant Wi-Fi hotspot to rural areas of the province,” said Wayne Campbell Squires, Electronic Centre the primary implementation partner for the Rural Broadband Network in Newfoundland. “With the EION controller, IceNet Wireless is able to control access for monthly subscribers as well as setting up temporary access for tourists.”

“What we are offering is an inherently scalable, cloud-based solution for managing WLAN networks. By carefully eliminating bottlenecks in the network architecture, StarCommander can grow to a very large size because the processing is distributed to the individual access points,” said Gerry Backs, SVP Business Development and Sales. “The powerful product features available with the controller open up brand new business models for our service provider networks as well as an added layer of network security for our enterprise and corporate WLAN operators.”

EION’s StarCommander System has a user-friendly web-desktop interface that allows highly flexible management of vouchers, users and devices. StarCommander is well suited for the management of free public Wi-Fi, paid Wi-Fi Hotspots and private corporate networks. With the voucher system for temporary access, network operators can create subscriber pre-paid services cards, which can be sold at kiosks to drive additional revenue into the network.

StarCommander is compatible with EION’s StarAccess Wi-Fi access point and compatible 3rd party Wi-Fi access points. Because the data-plane and control-plane is separated, EION solution is inherently scalable. Each StarAccess node controls the bandwidth allocation to the connected users after receiving instructions from the controller, avoiding a large bottleneck. Due to this scalability, networks can be designed with just a single access point or thousands for nationwide Wi-Fi coverage.