Press Release
Tanaza started the Open Wi-Fi System project in 2019, through the Telecom Infra Project (TIP) . The project was officially announced at TIP Summit ’19 in Amsterdam.
Launched in February 2016, TIP is a collaborative telecom community that is evolving the
infrastructure that underpins global connectivity. TIP’s mission is to accelerate the pace of
innovation in next generation telecom networks, through the design, build, test and deployment
of standards-based, open and disaggregated network solutions. Over the past four years TIP has
driven substantial innovation across all elements of the network including Access, Transport,
Core & Services, while spanning urban through to rural market use cases.
Tanaza joined TIP’s Wi-Fi Project Group in early 2019, and has contributed with technology and
experience in hardware and software disaggregation .
Tanaza believes that hardware and software disaggregation and,
ultimately, White-Box Wi-Fi access points are the way to lower total cost of ownership (TCO)
in Wi-Fi deployments and hence involve and connect more and more people. To this end,
Tanaza has demonstrated the compatibility of its cloud-based Wi-Fi controller platform with
TIP’s open-AP software stack, including the open-source framework OpenSync™. Thanks to this
project, any TIP Open Access Point, supporting an OpenSync™ interface, could be associated
with the Tanaza cloud platform, or any other cloud stacks available.
"Nowadays, the technology stacks used by operators to deploy Wi-Fi do not communicate with
each other. As a consequence, executing mass configurations, maintaining and troubleshooting
the networks, and the deployment of new applications demand an extremely high
effort. Disaggregation solves this problem by allowing the cloud software to speak with
White-Box Wi-Fi access points, that increases operational efficiency. In addition, disaggregation
allows reducing the total cost of ownership for operators by bringing down both the cost of
Wi-Fi hardware (CAPEX) and the costs of maintenance (OPEX)", states Sebastiano Bertani, CEO,
and Founder of Tanaza.
Tanaza joined forces with the other members of the TIP Wi-FI Project Group, to validate
how hardware and software components work together and to ensure those components
are interoperable . The access point firmware will be open-sourced within TIP, in addition to
some parts of the controller software. As a result, this will significantly lower the barrier to entry
for new vendors participating in the ecosystem.
"It’s something huge working on this project to reach more service providers that want to take
advantage of the opportunities that open Wi-Fi systems can offer. We’re working hard to make
this happen by using our knowledge and technologies. A first demo test case featuring the
interoperability of White-Box Wi-Fi hardware with Tanaza cloud stacks is ready. We are thrilled!"
says Cristian Piacente, CTO at Tanaza.
Tanaza is dedicated to make hardware and software disaggregation in Wi-Fi a reality.
