The Telecom Infra Project’s (TIP) OpenWiFi initiative aims to disaggregate the Wi-Fi network software stack and introduce open-source Wi-Fi networking to the world. As a longtime participant of the TIP OpenWiFi community, Candela Technologies is continuously seeking to provide the best possible test solutions to support and enable the community to create high-quality Wi-Fi products. Among others, Edgecore is one of the vendors in the community that designs and manufactures such first class Wi-Fi devices. Edgecore possesses a broad offering of high-end access points that come preinstalled with TIP’s OpenWiFi AP software, offering users an open platform for further customization.

Combining Candela Technologies’ testing expertise and Edgecore Network’s  high-spec access point, Candela has rolled out the WE-CAN (Wireless Education Campus Area Network) project, intending to install over a hundred Edgecore EAP101 TIP OpenWiFi access points in various college campuses across India and obtaining OpenWiFi AP performance results from the real world.

One of the successful networking tests was conducted at Gayatri Vidya Parishad College of Engineering for Degree & P.G. Courses (GVPCDPGC). Over 400 students participated in the event and engaged in access point set-up, firmware installation, and network testing etc. A total of nineteen EAP101 APs were deployed in a 27,000 sq ft area (an entire floor of the engineering building). The network was used by over 400 smartphones, close to 100 different phone models, all connected concurrently. As the latest Wi-Fi 6 technology is breaking the gigabit-per-second barrier for Wi-Fi traffic, the EAP101 APs supported over 400 smartphones for video streaming at the same time without any disruption. During the over 2 hours test, all the EAP101 APs were up 100% of the time without any reboots or crashes.

The results from GVPCDPGC not only show the rock-solid stability and reliability of the EAP101 while it is running the OpenWiFi SW stack, but also demonstrate how successful an industry-academia cooperation can be. Based on the huge success of the GVPCDPGC test, Candela and Edgecore Networks have confidence in the upcoming testing at other campuses and believe the EAP101 is the perfect choice for a TIP OpenWiFi access point in similar venues.