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• Municipality and city agency applications such as automated meter reading, mobile data access, and land management
• Public safety applications such as video surveillance and use by police and emergency services
• Public use applications, including use by residents, businesses, and tourists
• A sound business model with paying customers for government, business, and residential applications
• A Wi-Fi access network with low operational costs
• A backend infrastructure to handle wholesale models, interconnection with large customer domains, and provisioning of services
The Access Network
• The Cisco Compatible Extensions Program provides improved security and performance for participating devices.
• Radio resource management delivers dynamic channel assignment, autotransmit power control, and coverage-hole detection.
• Zero-touch configuration provides for autoconfiguration of access points, and a self-healing network.
• An intelligent routing algorithm establishes the best path to the root access node.
• Encrypted links provide for rogue access-point detection and blacklisting, and for intrusion detection.
• Central management provides automatic service load balancing across wireless LAN (WLAN) controllers, and centralized client blacklisting across the network.
• The unified architecture manages both indoor and outdoor access points, and systemwide monitoring of all access points.
The Backend Network
• With Cisco ServiceMesh, service providers can cost-effectively deploy and operate the access network. To reduce total cost of ownership, Cisco ServiceMesh uses a centralized control architecture that dynamically responds to varying conditions, and provides optimal route selection if a failure occurs or the radio environment changes.
• Service providers can combine indoor and outdoor wireless networks, integrate the control and monitoring of networks, as well as use policies and application mobility across networks.
• Service providers can manage access to the network. Whether free access, prepaid access, subscriptions, or corporate contract users, Cisco ServiceMesh manages identification and subsequent monitoring and enforcement of the agreed service.
• Service providers can offer applications to multiple customer groups from one converged platform. They can simplify network and policy design involved in offering many different applications to municipalities, small businesses, wholesale resellers, or consumers directly.
• Service providers can provision services from integrated components. Designing portal pages, setting up payment platforms, logging subscribers' details, controlling service levels per subscriber, and enforcing agreements-all backend functions are integrated into Cisco ServiceMesh.
Cisco ServiceMesh helps service providers deploy quickly and with lowered integration risks, delivering a complete system that offers the following characteristics:
• Integrated across many components
• Tested for functions working together as specified
• Hardened for scale and performance in real-life deployments
• Documented with best practices for optimal system performance
• Proven through deployments in multiple networks worldwide
Figure 1.
RF is an open medium, making WLANs susceptible to a variety of attacks. Cisco WPS provides multiple levels of security to protect the network from this type of malicious activity. The Cisco approach is the only solution by which all access points can simultaneously monitor the air on all channels while at the same time providing 802.11 services, thereby providing a single, integrated security management system.
The Cisco WPS is designed to detect excessive interference and unusual user activity and adjust channel assignments and access control accordingly, protecting legitimate wireless users from denial of service (DoS), void11, and other attacks. In addition, it is designed to prevent address spoofing of wireless devices to avoid FakeAP and similar attacks. The Cisco solution also is designed to "blacklist" users who make repeated unsuccessful login attempts, preventing dictionary attacks. Finally, it is designed to detect and adjust RF coverage areas to limit the effectiveness of NetStumbler and similar tools. The result is an RF domain that can protect both wireless and wireline resources from unscrupulous activity.
Cisco ServiceMesh controllers and access points are designed to regularly monitor the health of the network. Cisco access points are capable of delivering service while still monitoring the environment. Information that is continuously gathered includes:
• Receiver Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) per channel
• Interference per channel
• Noise per channel
• Presence of rogue users
• Number of users associated with an access point
If any blockages or access-point failures are found during monitoring, creating RF coverage holes, the system is designed to invoke its self-healing algorithms and modify the RF within the network by automatically adjusting power levels of other access points to compensate. If the controller is unable to cover up the coverage hole, the controller is designed to report the hole through a trap. The RF coverage hole can be graphically viewed in the Cisco WCS. This information is distributed to controllers that use this information to compute and deliver the best possible RF topology for the entire network.
Another unique aspect of the Cisco outdoor wireless solution is that it is also designed to continually monitor and adjust individual access-point power and channel assignments based on an "RF domain" or view of the entire system. The algorithms are dynamic and designed to work in real time so that both channel assignment and power assignment happen continually. So, if you are adding a new access point, or if there are changes in the environment, the system can react appropriately to maintain a level of maximum performance. The solution offers truly "dynamic" auto-RF capabilities.
For more detail about RRM, please see the following link: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps6306/products_white_paper0900aecd802c949b.shtml.
Cisco ServiceMesh includes a portfolio of Cisco Advanced Services-specialized consulting services for customers and partners across the lifecycle of a wireless mesh solution:
• Planning-Wi-Fi Mesh Technical Feasibility Study Services
• Design-Wi-Fi Mesh Detailed Design Consulting Services
• Design-Wi-Fi Mesh Site Assessment and Design Services
• Implementation-Wi-Fi Mesh Implementation Services
• Optimization-Wi-Fi Mesh Optimization Services
Cisco and its partners are specialists in wireless products and technologies, business analysis, and project management. Cisco services are available through various service programs designed to help accelerate customer success throughout the network lifecycle.
Figure 2.
