Telconet LATAM Weaves Urban Networks with Wi-Fi 6 Technology, Facilitating the Wi-Fi for All Strategy
A leading Ecuadorian integrated telecoms provider, Telconet has deployed 35,000 km of optical fibers and over 3000 service outlets nationwide. It has also completed cross-border optical fiber deployment and data center interconnection across multiple countries, including Colombia, Venezuela, and Guatemala.
In recent years, Telconet has focused on implementing a "Wi-Fi for All" strategy, deploying Wi-Fi networks in major Ecuadorian cities, including Guayaquil, Quito, and Cuenca. Indeed, cooperating with the national government, the company provides free Wi-Fi access for all citizens. And in business-intensive areas of the country, it helps to deliver revenue-generating services for enterprises and merchants.
With distance learning, telemedicine, and telecommuting becoming widespread during the COVID-19 pandemic, networking requirements have become far greater and far more urgent. In some areas of Ecuador, though, network coverage and quality remained poor, and information silos still existed. Under these circumstances, the value of the "Wi -Fi for All" strategy seemed crystal clear.
To provide free Wi-Fi Internet access to citizens, Telconet deployed 1700 Access Points (APs) nationwide and is also helping to accelerate the construction of urban Wi-Fi networks, optimizing AP deployments in communities, schools, hospitals, banks, and municipal offices.
However, there were challenges facing Telconet's progress in Wi-Fi network construction. For example, it had to determine how to improve network coverage, to allow more citizens to benefit from connectivity, through increased network bandwidth that would ensure a high quality user access experience and guarantee user access security.
To solve such network construction challenges, Telconet signed a cooperation agreement with Huawei, to help enable the commercial use of next-generation, future-oriented Wi-Fi 6 technology.
As well as inheriting and enhancing the features of Wi-Fi 5, Wi-Fi 6 introduces new features for high-density and bandwidth-hungry deployment scenarios, including Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) and Spatial Reuse (SR).
Huawei's AirEngine Wi-Fi 6 solution consists of a spectrum of technologies — designed to improve key performance factors such as bandwidth, latency, and user concurrency — to support various innovative applications for schools, hospitals, and offices.
Telconet has purchased and deployed thousands of Huawei Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) devices, including high-performance outdoor Wi-Fi 6 APs (AirEngine 6760R-51E), indoor settled Wi-Fi 6 APs (AirEngine 5760-51), standard Wi-Fi 5 APs (AP4050DE-M), AC6805 high-performance Wireless Area Controllers (WACs), and the Network Management System (NMS) eSight. This set of devices and systems has significantly improved the performance and user experience of urban Wi-Fi networks.
Scenario 1: Outdoor High-Density Public Venues
AirEngine 6760R-51E is an outdoor dual-band Wi-Fi 6 AP that supports 8 x 8 Multi-User, Multiple-Input, Multiple-Output (MU-MIMO) and eight spatial streams, providing a data transfer rate of up to 5.95 Gbit/s. This AP provides excellent outdoor coverage and is waterproof, dustproof, and surge protected in compliance with IP68 standards.
In densely distributed streets, each AP can connect to a maximum of 1024 Stations (STAs). Such high concurrency performance enables Telconet to meet high-density user access requirements with the minimum number of devices, reducing Capital Expenditure (CAPEX).
Scenario 2: Office Areas such as Municipal Offices and Banks
AirEngine 5760-51 is designed with built-in smart antennas to bring a high signal gain and increase the coverage area by 20%. This enables signals to follow users and allows users to access the network anytime and anywhere. Citizens can also easily access municipal services, instead of waiting in long queues, simply by using an app or webpages. This greatly reduces waiting times and improves the efficiency of processing government services.
Scenario 3: Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises, Shopping Malls, and Supermarkets
AP4050DE-M is a Wi-Fi 5 AP that supports 2 x 2 MU-MIMO and two spatial streams, providing a data transfer rate of 1.267 Gbit/s. This AP is ideal for user distribution scenarios and also an economical choice for small- and medium-sized enterprises.
In terms of data security, Huawei's full series of WLAN APs supports a wide array of authentication and encryption modes to enable WLAN security. The AC6805 is used to ensure the validity of access APs. Multiple mechanisms are used to improve the security of data transmission between APs and Access Controllers (ACs), implementing comprehensive protection for STAs, APs, and ACs.
Telconet is dedicated to providing optimal connectivity for Ecuador — based on state-of-the-art technologies, in line with the "Wi-Fi for All" strategy — collaborating with Huawei to deploy Wi-Fi 6 networks, in turn pioneering the use and supply of Wi-Fi 6 technologies to the country.
With exceptional network performance, Huawei's AirEngine Wi-Fi 6 technology meets the coverage and experience requirements of urban Wi-Fi networks, facilitates contactless public services, and lays a solid foundation for future Business-to-Business (B2B) service deployment. Indeed, the aim of Telconet's partnership with Huawei — which is long term and strategic — is to build on such foundations, to establish a digital and intelligent Ecuador.
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