08 November 2018

VAST CTO, Khetan Gajjar believes spectrum challenges are “inhibiting South Africa’s global competitiveness”.

VAST has come up with two technical innovations designed to enhance networks.

In September, the South African public Wi-Fi provider claimed to have developed the continent’s first, true carrier-grade ‘offload’ network.

VAST said the technology has been designed to seamlessly move traffic off mobile or enterprise network operators and onto its secure Wi-Fi network in order to free-up spectrum.

The company added that traffic can be rerouted back on to the operator’s network, equally seamlessly.

“The critical challenge of limited spectrum is evidenced in the number of 2G devices still in prevalent use, the lack of progress on digital television migration, and the constraints in the roll-out of 4G and 5G services,” says VAST’s CTO, Khetan Gajjar.

“This is impacting the ability of operators to provide mobile data at lower costs and is inhibiting South Africa’s global competitiveness.”

VAST has implemented the new system across its network of 2,500 high-density public Wi-Fi locations using two major platforms: Accuris AccuROAM, which provides authentication and authorisation services; and Benu Networks’ xMEG gateways.

The company says: “This enables scalable aggregation services that mask the Wi-Fi network elements as well as maintain the integrity of the security and management of the Wi-Fi network.”

As well as the ability to ‘offload’, VAST says its technology also hasa “unique” ability to accommodate multiple operators on the same network and simultaneously redirect traffic across multiple users.

Another advantage for users is said to be the opportunity to connect via existing devices as smartphones as old as five years will be compatible.

According to Déan Manefeldt, principal radio network architect at VAST, Wi-Fi’s traditional obstacle is on-boarding users.

He says: “By enabling this functionality, we can now offer our internet service providers a secure, seamless way of authenticating their customers using their individual SIM cards.”

Meanwhile in early October, VAST unveiled Hotspot 2.0, an IoT platform designed to seamlessly onboard consumer devices to a wireless network.

It is designed to enable users to connect their mobile devices by utilising self-authorised, pre-provisioned authentication credentials for an “effortless and efficient” sign-up process. 

VAST says Hotspot 2.0 is also designed to enable non-interactive devices, such as TVs, digital billboards and embedded media players, to connect to Wi-Fi without human interaction.

Point of sale devices can also be easily connected.

The platform is currently active in more than 2,000 locations across South Africa.

VAST partnered with Cisco and Ruckus Networks in the technology rollout which is said to be a first of its kind in Africa.