Combining fiber and copper networks into a single home gateway might not scream the next frontier for WiFi connectivity, so why has it never been done before? ZTE has unveiled exactly that this week, kitting out its new gateway to the rafters with mesh WiFi networking and support for the latest WiFi 6 standard.
It’s a jam-packed first of its kind from the Chinese electronics giant that is sure to provoke rapid responses from rival manufacturers, many of which should have plenty of spare time on their hands in the wake of MWC’s cancellation.
Called the ZXHN H6606, ZTE’s gateway supports the open source EasyMesh specification, plus support for VDSL2 35b network technology which is capable of reusing existing copper wiring to increase broadband speeds to 300 Mbps, ZTE claims. This is achieved using a simple SFP (small form-factor pluggable) cage – which serves as a transceiver to connect a gigabit passive optical network (GPON) module to switch access to a gigabit optical network.
Consumers then get all the benefits of whole-home coverage through mesh networking should they choose to install multiple APs in the home – facilitating client and band steering along with AP onboarding and management using EasyMesh. Of course, the benefit of supporting the WiFi Alliance’s EasyMesh is interoperability thanks to the multi-AP standard being adopted at scale, even among the founding fathers of mesh networking architectures.
EasyMesh essentially orchestrates the movement of clients between bands or between APs. Yet the real value in this standards-based self-adapting WiFi is planning ahead and knowing when to instruct a client to move and precisely how to move it given the current conditions of the network and other mitigating factors.
Vendors have jumped to adopt EasyMesh but even the WiFi Alliance itself has admitted that technically speaking the standard has some catching up to do compared to thoroughbred mesh systems. Although, as we said, the crux of EasyMesh is interoperability, not outperforming those around it. For example, EasyMesh pushes a standardized interface towards the gateway which we are told benefits everyone involved.
One criticism of the new ZTE gateway is a lack of tri-band support for WiFi 6, where the standard is used on two separate 5 GHz bands along with the 2.4 GHz band. These are few and far between, however, with the first tri-band WiFi 6 mesh product to market being CommScope’s SURFboard mAX Gigabit WiFi Pro and Plus systems which launched back in July last year.
Interestingly, at the time, the US vendor threw its competition under the bus, claiming other WiFi router makers cut corners by putting older WiFi 5 or 802.11n technology on some of the bands, so their devices don’t deliver the full advantages or promised speeds.
Almost in the same breath as CommScope, Technicolor launched what it claimed to be the first EasyMesh certified gateway together with its WiFi XL diagnostics platform. WiFi XL says it solves crucial pain points in the connected home through the integration of EasyMesh software – guaranteeing QoS over time via advanced diagnostics and what it calls a “curing solution”.
It’s worth remembering that Technicolor sold its WiFi Doctor division to AirTies a little over a year ago now, which the Turkish vendor has since integrated into its Remote Manager WiFi cloud management service. WiFi Doctor is more in the area of smart predictions and diagnostics, while Remote Manager focuses more on solutions.
The icing on the cake for AirTies however was inheriting a technique for quantifying the user experience, comprising a suite of cloud-based performance management software, embedded decision logic, and apps used by service providers to support field technicians, network engineers, customer care agents, marketing personnel and data analysts to improve in-home WiFi.
Circling back to hardware, ZTE wasn’t alone in WiFi 6 announcements this week, joined by Taiwan’s Zyxel in launching hardware making the most of techniques including MU-MIMO and OFDMA to maximize network capacity and support more devices. Like ZTE’s launch, it supports multiple network connectivity, but instead Zyxel’s gateway does so through fiber, 5G and G.fast networks. Zyxel’s EX5510-Bo dual-band AX gigabit ethernet gateway and supporting extenders delivers up to 4.8 Gbps on the 5 GHz band and 1.1 Gbps on the 2.4 GHz band.
Similarly, Zyxel has installed the EasyMesh standard, under the guise of MPro Mesh and the vendor is also offering a consumer mobile app for WiFi management – displaying network “health” and other snapshots.
ZTE’s ZXHN H6606 comes with eight WiFi spatial streams and PHY rate up to 3.6 Gbps. ZTE is naturally promoting support for its in-house chip which employs ARM’s Cortex-A53 dual-core architecture.
D-Link rolled out its latest gateway supporting EasyMesh a few weeks ago. The COVR-1102 does not have WiFi 6 support, however, so while ZTE is lauding support for 4K or even 8K video streaming and intensive online gaming, D-Link mentions a more modest support for a few simultaneous HD video streams. This shows the gulf in difference between technologies, and prices are certain to reflect that.
ZTE APs are widely deployed, appearing at tier 1 operators in Europe including Orange and ZTE boasts having the largest market share of CPE devices as of Q3 2019, citing IHS Markit data.