Meru Merits High in VOIPMeru Merits High in VOIP

SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- Meru Networks, the leader in voice/data wireless LAN infrastructure, today announced the results of independent tests, performed by The Tolly Group, which verify that Meru's Wireless LAN (WLAN) infrastructure products create a Wi-Fi network capable of carrying voice and data on standard WLANs with unprecedented scale and quality. The tests evaluated quality of service, scalability, and inter-access point handoff characteristics of Meru's Air Traffic Control technology. Unprecedented in the WLAN industry, Meru released results measuring Mean Opinion Scores (MOS), a test normally reserved for voice equipment being evaluated for telecommunications companies. Meru's WLAN is standards-based, is Wi-Fi certified and works with standards-based Wi-Fi clients without any client changes.

"Companies that consider a wireless LAN deployment with support for voice need to be aware of the toll-quality supported by the wireless infrastructure," said Kevin Tolly, CEO and president of The Tolly Group. "The average MOS score for the Meru Wireless LAN of 4.34 - 4.35 reported with data and voice over the same access point represents a very good score, and one that is significantly above the toll-quality threshold."

The performance tests further revealed:

A single, converged network for voice and data using Internet Protocol (IP) has long been recognized as the future of voice communications for its significant cost savings and operational benefits. Meru's WLAN System is the only system that extends these benefits to the wireless LAN with true enterprise-grade scalability, landline quality, and seamless mobility. Other WLANs typically require two sets of access points, one for voice and the other for data.

"In order to properly carry voice communications over Wi-Fi networks in enterprises, it is critical to address three fundamental areas: quality of service for both upstream and downstream traffic, inter-access point handoff, and 802.11 user density limitations," noted Dr. Vaduvur Bharghavan, Meru Networks' chief technology officer. "We have addressed all three with our Air Traffic Control technology and optimized the Wi-Fi network to create a single, converged voice and data network that can indeed be an alternative to wired networks. We achieve all these benefits with our Wi-Fi certified Access Points without any modification to standard Wi-Fi clients."

SiRF Technology, Inc., a provider of GPS chipsets, is using Voice over IP (VoIP) to control costs and increase productivity. The company has added Meru's WLAN System to its network architecture as a robust WLAN solution to complement its wired network investments.

"Being able to leverage our investment in both Cisco wired switches as well as Cisco wireless VoIP phones by seamlessly integrating them with the Meru Wi-Fi infrastructure is going to help us realize our planned productivity gains," said Ian Chronister, MIS manager at SiRF. "With the Cisco AVVID architecture and the Meru WLAN infrastructure we have a single, converged wired and wireless environment for both voice and data that will reduce our infrastructure and operations costs as well as provide a much better user experience."

Tolly Group

Meru Networks Inc.