Keith Parsons for years has preached about the benefits of writing a blog and giving back to the community so here I am, straddling the Wifi side of the fence and walking the Private Cellular line.
After mentioning in a recent blog post about Celona’s Air Kit that had been presented during Mobility Field Day 7, the Tech Field Day team sent me an invitation to the prestigious Mobility Field Day 8. Mobility Field Day for those not in the know, is a non vendor/marketing conference for companies to show off their products to a select panel of delegates who are considered experts in their field.
Delegates get to ask questions and drill the vendors on the products. I had no idea how entertaining it could be to be one of those delegates. What an experience being in the same room as people I’ve looked up to for years. First session was a little bit of a deer in the headlights feeling and I realized I needed to just speak up.
Check out the whole session over on Youtube starting here:
Why Wyebot?
Branching beyond my first impressions of the event, I want to dig into what we saw from Wyebot. I come into the spacing knowing only a little about their product but have some high hopes. I enjoy how Mist provides a deep analytical view into the spectrum and packets, what if a 3rd party vendor can bring that to other vendor solutions from say Aruba or Cisco? That has the potential to be a great solution.
Let me back up, Wyebot produces a sensor, which looks similar to an AP, that is completely passive for monitoring your Wifi network.
It is NOT an AP though, it’s just a sensor. Talking with fellow delegate, Mohammad Ali, during the event, he mentioned that a client of his mistook the Wyebot as the whole package, AP, sensor and all. You can check out Ali’s thoughts on being a delegate Mobility Field Day 8 on his blog at http://artofrf.com/.
Wyebot touts the idea that to understand the network from a client’s perspective you need to monitor it outside of the Wifi AP. Wifi AP vendors continue to bake the monitoring into the device with additional scanning radios. The question comes down to do we need these in the same network if our APs can give us a lot of this data already? The answer goes back to that age old answer, it depends.
I’m a Juniper Mist user, Why Wyebot?
Many of my client school districts moved to Juniper Mist APs for this very issue. K12 School District IT Staff are already stretched thin on resources. They are always looking for a dashboard to quickly verify what a problem is, so they can move on to the next fire.
Several years ago, when we were looking to upgrade our wireless network, this was one of the top priorities. Juniper driven by Mist AI filled that gap and has allowed our IT departments to focus on other fires and projects. They can focus where their skills are is better utilized. Most schools can’t hire a full time wireless guy. Perfect example, I work for 9 school districts and 5 charters. If we can offload some of that analytics to algorithms and artificial intelligence, that is a game changer for many IT departments.
While I wish all the districts that I support selected Juniper Mist, the truth comes down to the fact they purchase whatever product fits there needs and falls in their budget. I support schools that run Cisco, Aruba, Ruckus, and just finally removed the last of the old Xirrus spaceships, as they were known in the industry. What about these schools? I also support some small business that do not have the insights of Juniper’s Marvis? Wyebot might be a good fit for these sites.
The main questions I entered the presentation with Wyebot was about why I need this if I have Mist AI built into my network. Roger Sands and Anil Gupta briefly touched upon this topic in an almost unsatisfactory way for me. Obviously, Mist AI Marvis is the standard everyone is being compared to in the wireless networking world. This isn’t the most fair question as businesses with Mist Marvis are not necessarily their target audience. I’ll give them a pass; I just won’t be purchasing their gear for an overlay for my Juniper schools. Over vendors I see a large benefit of a sensor and will look into their products to support those schools.
One Big Wish
Finally, in this blog, I’ve focused more on the CBRS side. I have one big wish that I hope they come out with. For CBRS to take off, we are going to need an enterprise level sensor similar but without all the requirements of an Environmental Sensing Capability (ESC). The sensor would be different than the ESC the SAS companies are building along the coastlines to inform the SAS if there is potential interference. Maybe the Private Cellular vendors will come out with something like Mist AI that provides deeper insights than an ESC. Maybe we can provide this with a sensor we mount around an office space or warehouse. Maybe this might just be a device that an engineer uses to walk about a space for monitoring the network like PcTel. The market for private cellular is still being developed, and we will see what Wyebot or the competitors builds.
Wyebot, Because We Need You
Wyebot is one of those sensors that is probably in a market that has some growth potential but will eventually be replaced. For now I see a huge benefit to using an overlay sensor network for measuring a Wifi network. Is it for everyone? Absolutely not. Is it worth the additional cost to build out an overlay network? That is up to the organization.
Will Wyebot give you information that can improve the network? That depends on your expectations and existing network. Some data maybe a game changer, others may be just an additional dataset. That all comes down to your organization. Check out Wyebot and form your own personal opinion and see if they fit a pain point for your organizations.
