Airties has made a “significant collaboration” with RDK Management, designed to streamline operator-grade Wi-Fi EasyMesh deployments.
Airties has contributed its Wi-Fi EasyMesh controller software module, as a new RDK-B component, for use by the RDK community across broadband gateways/routers.
RDK is an open source software platform, deployed on more than 80 million devices worldwide, that standardises core functions and telemetry used in broadband, video, and IoT connected devices. In broadband devices specifically, RDK-B provides a common platform across broadband access technologies including DOCSIS, GPON, and DSL, with functionality such as routing, Wi-Fi, diagnostics and IoT support.
The contribution means operators will be able to spend less time on platform integration efforts such as OEMs and chipsets. Vendors and operators across the RDK community are now free to deploy their own products using the contributed Wi-Fi EasyMesh controller.
“Airties helped solve a genuine need of the RDK community with this software contribution,” said Jason Briggs, President and General Manager of RDK. “Operators want the benefits of Wi-Fi EasyMesh, while retaining the ability to provide an operator-grade managed Wi-Fi service, and this code contribution helps make that possible. We are very pleased to have a proven Wi-Fi innovator like Airties playing such an active role in our community.”
“Since its inception, RDK has dramatically sped up, standardized, and improved core CPE software to benefit operators around the world,” adds Philippe Alcaras, CEO of Airties. “Our team has been supporting RDK operators in Europe and North America, while also pioneering efforts in EasyMesh, so we were in a unique position to assist with this key technical alignment and integration.”
The core functionality of the new RDK-B component contributed by Airties includes: onboarding of Wi-Fi EasyMesh agents on gateways/routers and extenders; setting up in-home backhaul connections; propagating fronthaul configuration changes; and collecting statistics periodically.
Later, a planned enhancement will expose configurations and device state via the common RDK message bus (RBus). The controller can support any certified Wi-Fi EasyMesh device. Broadband operators can then adopt and license advanced solutions, from Airties or others, to enable controller-initiated steering, cloud-based channel management, and cloud-based diagnostics collection.