Meru's Video Services Module (ViSM) is designed to address video-delivery issues specific to 802.11n networks, which are susceptible to unpredictable loss rates that can negatively impact video quality. The module applies application-aware optimisation techniques to web streaming and real-time multicast video, the underlying technologies that enable a broad array of video applications, from wireless projection, IPTV and event simulcast to videoconferencing, telepresence and video surveillance.
"Video-based applications are becoming pervasive in schools, health-care institutions and other enterprises because they boost productivity significantly for a relatively low cost," said Vaduvur Bharghavan, Meru's chief technology officer. "But high-definition video delivery over wireless is especially challenging because it combines the high bandwidth requirements of heavy data traffic with the delay sensitivity and loss characteristics of voice traffic. And while 802.11n dramatically increases available bandwidth, it also increases per-transmission error rates. For multicast applications this translates to lost portions of video; for web video streaming it can mean stalled video or the loss of voice-video synchronization.
"The power of the Video Services Module lies in Meru's unique virtualized WLAN architecture, which gives every client device its own dedicated wireless 'port,'" Bharghavan said. "With Meru's Virtual Port™, each client gets its own copy of the multicast application traffic, delivered at the highest possible data rate and unaffected by the transmission or power-save behaviour of other clients. In other vendors' legacy micro-cell solutions, which force all clients to share the same wireless resource, some clients will always suffer in terms of the timely delivery of multicast frames when other clients require buffering of traffic, thus causing multicast video delays for every client."