Cisco Bringing High Definition Video to WLAN Clients Via VideoStream Technology

Cisco’s Wireless LAN customers have something great to look forward to. It’s been announced that Cisco Systems will be showcasing its new VideoStream technology to mobile users throughout its WLAN architectures, which will offer high definition videos. The company has put together deployed access points and a wireless controller, allowing Cisco to promise its customers WLAN video minus the overhead that’s found with other multi-cast video streams. In the upcoming 7.0 release for wireless controllers and access points from Cisco Systems, customers won’t have to face any charges for VideoStreaming, since it will still be in beta phase. It is scheduled to be released in May 2010.

Many have wondered if it was possible to deliver quality video streaming via wireless networking like with wired networks. Cisco in turn decided to test this out with its VideoStreaming technology. With the VideoStreaming, multiple wireless endpoints will help to delivery High Definition videos to mobile users. VideoStreaming is only a portion of Cisco’s overall Medianet plan to offer an architectural approach for networks that are able to handle a variety of media types, including wired and wireless connection points.

Chris Kozup, Cisco’s senior manager, stated that the company’s focus has been on coming up with ways to deliver elements that were existent on wired environments and use the lessons they’ve learned from wired to expand to wireless, with a main focus on bandwidth, scale and quality. Product manager of Cisco’s wireless networking business, David Stiff, added that the intro to 802.11n, users will receive high speed bandwidth to obtain data wirelessly, but there are still challenges involving wireless being a shared media, which has only one access point that multiple clients are trying to get the same data and range from.

With 802.11n, speeds can reach higher than 100 Mb/s, which is much faster than 802.11a/b/g. With the steady increase of mobile users using wireless as a primary form of access to videos and enterprise networks, there will only be more and more video distribution vendors creating infrastructures to meet their demands — just as Cisco Systems has done.