In a country that measures things with imperial units, one company, Meter, is making waves when it comes to NaaS with a metric measurement for their name. Network as a Service (NaaS), a convoluted term that many feel can be confusing, is spouting a whole group of companies looking to capitalize on attempts to bring the cloud model deeper into the enterprise.
Meter has been turning heads when they started to get traction building their own view of networking. The NaaS model is challenging how networks are deployed and managed across the industry. Meter is doing things in their own way and not following the general NaaS model.
Meter Up
Back in October, I was invited to the first Meter Up event in San Francisco and got a tour of the Meter HQ to see what they are building. I even got one-on-one time with Meter CEO and Co-Founder, Anil Varanasi, and Director of Cellular, Charlie Cobb. We got to hear about the full Meter stack and Meter Command.
We also got some content with industry leaders for a Fireside chat with Jay Parikh, formerly the Global Head of Engineering and Infrastructure at Facebook, a panel of WiFi and Network leaders that discussed the future of networking, and a Fireside chat with Michelle Zatlyn, Co-Founder of CloudFlare. All around, the event was of the highest quality. If you want to watch the recordings from the event you can request access here.
The Meter Way
I knew a few things about how Meter was approaching networking but had a ton of questions. Anil and his team answered those questions on stage and introduced more questions.
How does Meter differ from say Nile or established vendors like Cisco and Juniper? What are their thoughts on Private 5G? I had heard through the grapevine that Meter was working on a Cellular product and hoped it would be introduced at Meter Up. I was pleasantly surprised..
But first, let’s dig into the Meter way of networking. Starting with Anil’s own words. The “network matters” and “everything is packets” montage is Meter’s focus. Building quality networks of packets and ensuring those packets are delivered on time, that is the Meter way. Anil says that networking for the future requires a new approach.
Meter is focused on the full stack. You buy everything from Meter through a subscription. Instead of buying the hardware and paying for licensing and support fees, you subscribe to the Meter world. When there is an upgrade available you receive it. Meter is bringing the SaaS model to hardware networking world.
For example, currently Meter does not have 6GHz WiFi APs available in their eco-system. At Meter Up they announced that they are working on them for a 2025 release date. The Meter way makes those who need the latest iPhone-esk networking gear very happy. If you subscribe to the Meter model right now, you would receive their current WiFi 6 APs, Switches, Firewalls, cabling, design, and management. When they release their new WiFi 6e or WiFi 7 APs this coming year, you will automatically have them come and install them at no additional cost beyond your regular subscription cost.
That is the Meter way at work. Meter sees this is cost savings on their side because they only have to support the current lineup instead of having to maintain backwards compatibility with old gear.
As I mentioned, Meter wants to own the whole networking stack. That includes partnerships for doing the installs the Meter way. Running new Cat6a cabling that is up to their high standards is also on their list of services in their subscriptions. They rely heavily on local partnerships that are installing the full stack to their certified standards.
Meter Cellular
The one thing I had hoped to hear about was their focus on Private Cellular. After hearing about all the industry challenging solutions Meter is deploying, they had a brand new product announcement. Meter Cellular.
Head of Cellular, Charlie Cobb, is someone like me. As a teenager, he was interested in learning all he could about Cellular networks. He always notices the cellular towers in an area. You could feel the passion as he announced the new product category.
Meter Cellular is a very specific area of Private Cellular networking. They are doing what their customers are asking. Neutral Host is what customers are requesting and is their focus for at least the initial product launch. According to Meter, antiquated DAS solutions and Wi-Fi Calling are not providing the coverage their customers are needing.
The feedback Meter is hearing from their customers would be a system with a simple and fast installation, excellent performance, and cost and space efficient hardware. That is their goal for the Cellular product. They believe that a focus on just Neutral Host will solve those problems for their customers.
In a one-on-one question and answer opportunity, I got to ask specifics about what Meter announced. They are building a MOCN Neutral Host solution. This requires partnerships with the big carriers. They said that T-Mobile and AT&T are onboard. Verizon is still looking to do private cellular their way and not play nice with others in the market. Hopefully that changes and Verizon comes around.
Meter is partnering with Airspan for the hardware radios. I had hoped to hear they they are deploying Cellular in a regular WiFi AP but that is not the case. The two networks will be deployed along-side each other where they are needed. The footprint of Cellular CBRS compared to Wi-Fi is different and is not needed as densely. Also Neutral Host is not needed everywhere, so this makes sense.
Even though, I’ve thought differently in the past, I think the model of parallel overlay networks for each technology makes the most sense. Cellular just handles more area than WiFi and isn’t needed in a MOCN Neutral Host model everywhere that WiFi is needed. It does require an additional cabling and switch port. Meter has those covered in their design and implementation. When you control the whole stack, you can gather data and find where the bottlenecks exist and fix them.
With MOCN Neutral Host, the Carriers are requiring very specific SLAs of sites deploying the technology. Meter because they own the whole stack has a better chance to show that those metrics are being met. Their partnerships with Telcos for providing Internet services to sites through their website, their firewall controls and logging, switching logging, just provides the level of data needed to ensure to the carriers that the network is installed properly and meets those SLAs. That is a big need moving forward for Neutral Host to actually work and be supported by the big vendors.
Meter Labs
At the Meter Up event, we got to tour the Meter offices and see the Meter Labs. They didn’t have any Cellular hardware on hand since it was such a new announcement. If I ever get an opportunity to go back, I’d love to see their Cellular product in person.
A few months post announcement, I’m hearing that they have gear in house for testing. Charlie announced that the GA of Cellular will be released in Early 2025. They are beta testing it with a few customers right now.
Neutral Host MOCN is all the rage when it comes to private cellular right now. At my day job, we are testing a MOCN network and having issues unless there is absolutely zero coverage from the carrier networks. I’m hearing others having similar issues. I hope that these MOCN problems can be resolved. The problem is largely a political one more than a technological one.
There are a lot of people looking at resolving the indoor cellular coverage. Meter through their full stack solution has a good chance to solving that.
Towers Edge Talks Cellular at Meter HQ
A day after the Meter Up event, I had the opportunity to return to the Meter HQ Offices. I got to sit down with Meter Co-Founder and CEO, Anil Varanasi, and Head of Cellular, Charlie Cobb. They let me film and ask questions about the Meter networking stack and directed questions about the Meter Cellular product. Check out the recording from my Towers Edge channel.
I also ran into Charlie Cobb at Mobile World Congress in Las Vegas a few weeks later when I got to discuss things on a deeper level. At MWC, Charlie mentioned that Meter was presenting at an upcoming Tech Field Day event. I was sad to hear it was at Networking Field Day 36 instead of when I was in attendance at Mobility Field Day 12 a couple weeks later. I hope Meter does a Mobility Field Day event when they bring their Wi-Fi 6e or 7 APs to market and with data about how Cellular is working for their customers.
Cellular Release
As they announced in October at Meter Up, their Cellular product release is happening soon, in the first part of 2025. They recently announced a webinar where they are planning to talk about how their Wi-Fi and Cellular products fit amongst SLED customers.
I hope the Meter Cellular solution gains traction and solves the cellular connectivity headaches. Private Cellular has potential to solve big issues. Can we work through the political red tape? As an industry, we are still figuring that out.
The Meter way has an above average chance to break through those problems. Enterprises just have to buy into the Meter way for all their network needs and get Cellular without a big investment. Meter has the ability to add Cellular where it is needed because they control the whole stack.
