As the Baby Boomer generation ages, senior living facilities must improve their technology systems to accommodate changing resident needs. The most technologically savvy group of seniors, Baby Boomers are likely to adopt technology that advances their lifestyle and improves their level of care. Accessibility, connectivity, and communication are all modern-day conveniences seniors expect today.

Comfortable Accessibility
One of the greatest innovations is the IoT, the connected home. With customizable technology solutions such as smart lighting, window treatments, and lock/access controls, seniors can relax and change their environment with ease. Empower seniors with remote door locks, eliminating any unnecessary movement but giving them privacy and comfortability in their own space. World Cinema’s ImpruviX NetworX brings peace of mind to seniors and their families through simple solutions that keep their loved ones’ (and their data) safe and secure. Residents can also connect to their space through Amazon Alexa using their voice to request changes to their room. Systems like voice-controlled searching enhance senior technology experiences.

Community Involvement
Recent studies indicate the importance of community involvement on senior living happiness and mental health. With WorldVue, you can alert guests when an event is approaching, and let them know the details through their screen. Digitize resident information through your own in-house channel and inform residents when they have appointments or upcoming visits. Keep residents in the loop by displaying your location amenities through text, photos, and looping videos played on each in-room television screen. WorldVue also provides a live stream option to keep your residents connected from inside their rooms. This feature enables mobility-impaired guests to interact and engage with their environment, boosting levels of happiness and comfortability. Communication is increasingly important and staying connected with your residents ensures they are comfortable, safe, and empowered to age gracefully in your facility.

Enhanced Communication
Finally, the World Cinema Wi-Fi platform ensures senior living residents are constantly connected with friends and family. Reduce feelings of isolation by simplifying their internet and cellular service, empowering residents to use their devices for video conferencing, social media networking, and long-distance phone calls. With OpticalHome, seniors can move in and plug in, without hassling with local internet providers. Additionally, erase the stigma associated with Wi-Fi connectivity by creating a seamless InstaOn™ experience. This system allows residents to move in, plug in, and start streaming their favorite shows, connecting devices with ease.

Wi-Fi Alliance^® adds Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E support to help service providers manage complex networks

Austin, Texas – October 7, 2021 – Wi-Fi CERTIFIED Data Elements™, the standardized approach to facilitating important key performance indicators for Wi-Fi^® network health, now supports advanced Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E networks. The latest generation of Wi-Fi is quickly gaining traction in residential networks, bringing a variety of features, capabilities, and advanced use cases that make network management more complex. Service providers deploying Wi-Fi Data Elements^™ can more efficiently gather metrics to manage the complexity of multi-generation networks and provide the best user experience to their customers. Wi-Fi Data Elements effectively scales to support more devices operating on Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E networks, delivering detailed operating parameters and real-world performance indicators – such as PHY rates, airtime, and retry rates –  that inform management decisions in dense and dynamic networks.

In addition to providing greater understanding into Wi-Fi networks – such as how many devices are on the network, use of bandwidth, signal strength measurements, and free airtime – Wi-Fi Data Elements also aligns diagnostic elements with Wi-Fi CERTIFIED EasyMesh™, supporting traffic prioritization and channel scanning in multi-access point (AP) networks. Support for Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E enables Wi-Fi Data Elements to provide key performance indicators associated with advanced use cases, maximizing service providers’ ability to deliver Quality of Service (QoS) for 4K video streaming, cloud gaming, AR/VR, and more over a larger service area. Support call frequency, support call duration, network interference, and congestion are also minimized because network administrators can proactively and more effectively resolve network issues even in very dense network environments.

“There are more than 250 key performance indicators offered by Wi-Fi Data Elements that service providers can use to recognize and resolve Wi-Fi network issues,” said Kevin Robinson, SVP of Marketing, Wi-Fi Alliance^®. “Wi-Fi Data Elements delivers those important performance markers in a standardized way, allowing service providers to respond better to the dynamic nature of advanced Wi-Fi networks and deliver the best experience to their customers.”

Deploying Wi-Fi Data Elements benefits the full managed network ecosystem. Network operators gain timely visibility into Wi-Fi performance within a customer’s network and diagnostic or analytics tool vendors benefit through use of standardized key performance indicators—specific to Wi-Fi networks—to create more effective tools.

For more information, please visit our website and download our technology overview and/or highlights sheet.

About Wi-Fi Alliance^®  |  www.wi-fi.org
Wi-Fi Alliance^® is the worldwide network of companies that brings you Wi-Fi®. Members of our collaboration forum come together from across the Wi-Fi ecosystem with the shared vision to connect everyone and everything, everywhere, while providing the best possible user experience. Since 2000, Wi-Fi Alliance has completed more than 65,000 Wi-Fi certifications. The Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™ seal of approval designates products with proven interoperability, backward compatibility, and the highest industry-standard security protections in place. Today, Wi-Fi carries more than half of the internet’s traffic in an ever-expanding variety of applications. Wi-Fi Alliance continues to drive the adoption and evolution of Wi-Fi, which billions of people rely on every day.

Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E support allows service providers to ensure state-of-the-art Wi-Fi network coverage

Austin, TX – October 7, 2021 – Wi-Fi CERTIFIED EasyMesh^™ now incorporates the latest technologies from Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E, improving Wi-Fi^® connectivity, performance, and efficiency in multiple access point (AP) networks. New capabilities enable service providers deploying Wi-Fi EasyMesh^™ to deliver higher data rates, increase network capacity, and reduce spectral congestion in home networks. Support for Wi-Fi 6E allows Wi-Fi EasyMesh networks to utilize less congested spectrum in the 6 GHz band to deliver the best experience with high bandwidth, low-latency services and applications. Added support for these advanced technologies allows Wi-Fi EasyMesh networks to self-monitor and intelligently manage an extended footprint while providing reliable, uniform whole-home coverage.

The expectations for the connected home have changed, and home networks must now support extended coverage areas – such as garages and basements that now serve as work and education areas – higher bandwidth applications, and up to 20 active devices at once¹. Home networks now present new challenges for service providers as they address a greater number of speed, latency, and connectivity concerns. Wi-Fi EasyMesh allows service providers to better support their customers’ growing networks and deliver more reliable and consistent quality of service, even with demanding applications

“Wi-Fi Alliance^® is continually improving the quality of experience and consistency of performance in Wi-Fi networks,” said Kevin Robinson, SVP of Marketing, Wi-Fi Alliance. “Wi-Fi EasyMesh is part of a compelling collection of Wi-Fi Alliance certification programs that provide foundational tools that enable service providers to intelligently manage the connected home experience.”

Benefits for service providers and product vendors

Wi-Fi EasyMesh incorporates the latest technologies that enhance performance between access points and client devices on the network. The combination of these capabilities improves spectral efficiency of the network and supports higher bandwidth and lower latency requirements. Service providers deploying Wi-Fi EasyMesh can provide more extensive coverage and can more efficiently manage network resources, providing their customers a more consistent experience. Additionally, new techniques to communicate Wi-Fi 6 capabilities in Wi-Fi EasyMesh networks can also be utilized by Wi-Fi CERTIFIED Data Elements^™ to provide analytics to operators for greater insight into multiple AP network health. Product vendors also benefit from improved certification efficiency and cost savings when bringing interoperable Wi-Fi EasyMesh devices to market.

Advanced Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E features now supported in Wi-Fi EasyMesh networks include:

• BSS Coloring: reduces spectral congestion and ensures consistent service to multiple access points in dense environments.
• Multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO): allows more downlink data to be transferred at one time, increasing network capacity by enabling access points to concurrently handle more devices.
• OFDMA: enables access points to simultaneously communicate with multiple devices, implements scheduling techniques to help mitigate network interference, and effectively shares channels to increase network efficiency and provide lower latency.
• Superwide, 160 MHz channels: support for up to seven, superwide channels enables higher data rates, while also further meeting lower latency requirements.
• 1024-QAM: increases data rates and incorporates more data into each transmission to improve spectral efficiency.

“CableLabs is excited about the new Wi-Fi CERTIFIED EasyMesh capabilities, with support for Wi-Fi 6 features such as Spatial Reuse Groups, BSS coloring, OFDMA and others,” said John Bahr, Principal Architect at CableLabs. “These features will allow Wi-Fi EasyMesh networks to more efficiently reuse RF spectrum making it a great option for cable operators to deliver the next generation of home Wi-Fi, with lower latency and better speeds.”

For more information, please visit our website and download our technology overview and/or highlights sheet.

¹ Consumer Expectations for Wi-Fi in 2021, AirTies

About Wi-Fi Alliance^®  |  www.wi-fi.org
Wi-Fi Alliance^® is the worldwide network of companies that brings you Wi-Fi®. Members of our collaboration forum come together from across the Wi-Fi ecosystem with the shared vision to connect everyone and everything, everywhere, while providing the best possible user experience. Since 2000, Wi-Fi Alliance has completed more than 65,000 Wi-Fi certifications. The Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™ seal of approval designates products with proven interoperability, backward compatibility, and the highest industry-standard security protections in place. Today, Wi-Fi carries more than half of the internet’s traffic in an ever-expanding variety of applications. Wi-Fi Alliance continues to drive the adoption and evolution of Wi-Fi, which billions of people rely on every day.

Microsoft Windows 11 native support for Wi-Fi Dual Station, coupled with Qualcomm FastConnect 4-stream Dual Band Simultaneous and broad industry support, enables Gaming and PC OEMs to effortlessly deliver ethernet-like reliability and latency.

Ecosystem support from Acer, AMD, Lenovo, Microsoft, Snapdragon Compute Platforms and Valve

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., together with ecosystem leaders spanning key platforms and OEMs, is set to redefine wireless expectations for latency-sensitive gaming, productivity and learning applications on Window’s 11 PCs with Qualcomm® FastConnect™ systems. Wi-Fi Dual Station designed using Qualcomm® 4-Stream Dual Band Simultaneous, harnesses multiple Wi-Fi bands and antennas concurrently, to outperform traditional single band connections.  By simultaneously utilizing the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz band (or 6 GHz where available), latency issues in one band can be easily resolved at a system-level both quickly and transparently to the end user.

Qualcomm 4-stream Dual Band Simultaneous

“Microsoft is pleased to bring ‘Wi-Fi Dual Station’ to the Windows 11 ecosystem, enabling our Windows OEMs and ecosystem leaders to deliver low-latency performance on the latest Wi-Fi hardware. Games and other latency-sensitive applications can now leverage two concurrent Wi-Fi connections providing best-in-class user experiences,” said Ian LeGrow, vice president, program management for windows platforms and services, Microsoft.

“More so now than ever before, high-performance, robust and low-latency wireless connectivity is the critical factor in delivering compelling, engaging and immersive experiences,” said Dino Bekis, vice president and general manager, mobile and compute connectivity, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.  “This unique collaboration with Microsoft was essential in realizing the promise of Windows 11 with Qualcomm Technologies’ latest Wi-Fi 6E 4-stream Dual Band Simultaneous devices.   Through focused collaboration, we address today’s unprecedented wireless challenges and dramatically extend these premium capabilities to the entire ecosystem.”

Valve has added initial support for Wi-Fi Dual Station to the Steamworks SDK to deliver low latency and jitter-free online play for the millions playing games that utilize the Steamworks SDK for networking. This includes Valve’s popular online titles Dota 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO), which will now benefit from the improved and sustained responsiveness when played on a Windows 11 gaming device with supporting FastConnect connectivity systems.

Even occasional high latency (jitter) events significantly deteriorate online game play which has historically caused PC gamers to stay tethered to Ethernet. Wi-Fi Dual Station with Qualcomm 4-stream Dual Band Simultaneous addresses the need for sustained low latency over extended periods of time, unleashing gaming experiences with wire-class responsiveness.

“We’re seeing considerable reductions in jitter and packet loss with Wi-Fi Dual Station enabled, especially when the AP is heavily loaded,” said Fletcher Dunn at Valve. “This is important for any online title, and especially beneficial for competitive online titles such as CS:GO and Dota 2. Games using the Steamworks SDK for networking will experience these same benefits with no added development time.”

In testing conducted by Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. with off-the-shelf retail Wi-Fi 6 Access Points, Wi-Fi Dual Station with Qualcomm 4-stream Dual Band Simultaneous consistently delivered sustained jitter free wireless gameplay similar to Ethernet latency under the same conditions. Further, in head-to-head wireless comparisons with Single Station Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Dual Station yielded 4x lower latency and sustained jitter-free gameplay, underscoring the immediate value to online gamers.

Qualcomm 4-stream Dual Band Simultaneous 2-in-1 performance

“Acer’s new gaming notebooks that feature FastConnect 6900 connectivity will provide ethernet-grade Wi-Fi,” said James Lin, General Manager, Notebooks, IT Products Business, Acer Inc. “With responsiveness offered by the Qualcomm 4-stream Dual Band Simultaneous, gamers will be able to enjoy a low-latency gaming experience without the wires.”

Beyond gaming, these technology advancements and capabilities provide material improvements for the ever-increasing demands of the enterprise PC industry. The combination of superior Wi-Fi 6 feature implementation (such as Wi-Fi Dual Station) and the extension of those capabilities to new 6 GHz spectrum (Wi-Fi 6E), are at the heart of addressing the exponentially growing demand for intense two-way data traffic (video calls, collaboration tools, remote management) and ensuring sustained productivity whether in a centralized office or decentralized remote work environment.

“We are excited to work with Qualcomm Technologies to deliver best-in-class connectivity solutions on AMD enterprise platforms,” said Jason Banta, Corporate Vice President and General Manager, Client OEM, AMD. “Leadership connectivity performance is critical, and together, FastConnect, Microsoft Windows and AMD raise the bar for speed, capacity and latency performance to bring exceptional hybrid-work experiences to a demanding workforce.”

“Working, learning, collaborating have all become distributed beyond what we could have imagined even two years ago, and connectivity must rise to the occasion to deliver the speed, capacity and reliable low latency needed to handle modern computing applications and environments. Wi-Fi Dual Station with Qualcomm 4-stream Dual Band Simultaneous, together with 6 GHz operation (Wi-Fi 6E) have enormous potential, and we applaud all involved in bringing these advanced wireless technologies to fruition.  Lenovo is committed to delivering game-changing technology solutions and we look forward to harnessing these next gen features for a better customer experience in the future.” Luis Hernandez, vice president, PC and Smart Solutions Development, Lenovo Intelligent Devices Group.

Qualcomm FastConnect

For more information about FastConnect please visit https://www.qualcomm.com/products/wi-fi/fastconnect.

About Qualcomm
Qualcomm is the world’s leading wireless technology innovator and the driving force behind the development, launch, and expansion of 5G.  When we connected the phone to the internet, the mobile revolution was born.  Today, our foundational technologies enable the mobile ecosystem and are found in every 3G, 4G and 5G smartphone. We bring the benefits of mobile to new industries, including automotive, the internet of things, and computing, and are leading the way to a world where everything and everyone can communicate and interact seamlessly.

Qualcomm Incorporated includes our licensing business, QTL, and the vast majority of our patent portfolio. Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated, operates, along with its subsidiaries, substantially all of our engineering, research and development functions, and substantially all of our products and services businesses, including our QCT semiconductor business.

Given the growing popularity of smartphones and other Wi-Fi enabled devices, small and medium-sized businesses often face the challenge of managing their wireless networks effectively. With the ever-increasing penetration of the Internet for agile and digitally responsive companies, even smaller enterprises have started switching to cloud-based wireless access networks to ensure seamless internet connectivity for undisrupted business operations.

While traditional wireless access points worked like routers to create a local wireless network within a predefined radius, the next generation cloud-based wireless access points are significantly better and, in addition to ensuring seamless connectivity, offer a host of other benefits.

Given below are the top four benefits of switching to a Cloud Managed Wireless Network

Minimize the Cost; Maximize your Business

Cloud-managed wireless solutions can relieve your current IT resources by eliminating the need for any onsite wireless support, as it allows you to proactively discover and eliminate technical issues before it affects your workflow.

Minimal IT Support = Reduced IT Efforts

By offering a single point of management for installation, configuration, and diagnostics, cloud-managed wireless solutions come with a central interface that dramatically simplifies the challenge of handling dynamic networking needs with minimal help and support.

Improved Security

Network sensors, applications, and software work in tandem to identify rogue APIs and other complications and send auto alerts to isolate the issue when any problem is detected. It also automatically performs software updates to protect your critical business data.

Peerless Support

A cloud-based wireless network also minimizes the need for software upgrades and equipment maintenance as these are efficiently taken care of by the vendor.

Switching to a cloud-based wireless network can boost productivity, enhance network security and reduce IT expenses. With less downtime, superior IT support, and access to key analytics, you can achieve your business goals efficiently.

In conclusion

The benefits of using cloud-based access points are endless. If used optimally, it can even trump the benefits offered by conventional wireless access points for companies. It does not just keep pace with the ever-evolving needs of growing businesses but is also massively scalable. Are you wondering how to hook your business up with a network of class-leading cloud-managed Access Points? Fret not! Augment on the go with HFCL IO Networks’ Cloud Managed Access Points.

Providing guest WiFi gives businesses a way to create a captive audience for marketing. By properly leveraging the full capabilities of a quality guest WiFi system, your business can funnel customers towards making purchases at an integrated POS system.

Ultimately, you’ll obtain customers, delight them with offers, finish an order, and follow up with clients in an effective, fluid way.

What is Guest Wi-Fi?
A guest WiFi system is a secondary access point on your network system to which guests can connect. In the context of business, guest WiFi is the wireless internet that your customers connect to rather than your company’s personal network.

This separate gateway can direct customers to specific pages, provide your business with valuable data, and allow you to schedule marketing campaigns. In short, properly utilized guest WiFi can be the difference between just another passerby and a customer.

What is Wi-Fi Marketing?
Guest WiFi systems are multi-faceted, providing a direct path for advertising to users while simultaneously gaining actionable information from them.

Signing into a guest WiFi system requires the user to provide data, such as:

• Name
• Email
• Phone number
• Date of birth

WiFi marketing uses that information to send clients general and customized offers while also creating a profile for that user.

So, what is WiFi marketing? It’s a system that both gives and takes information from a business to draw in customers, impress them and win them over, and then direct them to a company’s POS system to finish the sale and guarantee repeated transactions.

What are the Benefits of WiFi Marketing?
By viewing WiFi marketing as a system that draws in, delights, wins over, and encourages customers, it’s easy to see where the benefits of this type of marketing emerge.

From the moment customers sign into your guest WiFi, they will be subject to your advertising whims. For starters, WiFi marketing gives businesses a platform for advertising by turning the WiFi homepage into a digital billboard that advertises directly to them.

As your system continues to gain the personal data of the users, your business can generate profiles to aid in specific WiFi marketing campaigns. You’ll have the opportunity to integrate aspects from your POS system into this marketing campaign, too.

Your guest WiFi system could identify your customer’s habits and set a trigger for an offer to appear at the POS system. For example, if a repeat customer comes into the store and makes a purchase, your system could trigger an offer that provides them 20% off on their sale if they meet a certain condition.

Your business could use that to increase outright sales by requiring a higher purchase amount or it could make customers sign up for your email service to get that coupon, giving you more information to use in the future. Both of those measures, and the multitude of others available, give your business options to get more out of your interactions with customers.

Integrating marketing and guest WiFi systems can drive sales, provide customer insights, and facilitate better promotions for your entire business. GoZone WiFi’s powerful Marketing4WiFi provides companies like yours with a highly customizable, effective marketing portal.

Trying to get create an effective digital captive portal that results in better sales might seem daunting, but GoZone WiFi can help you establish the systems you need to get the results you want.

Edgecore Networks, the leading provider of open network solutions for enterprises, data centers, and telecommunication service providers, Ecrio, the leading supplier of Mobile Carrier Communications and Messaging client software, and today announced that Ecrio delivers Carrier Voice (4G VoLTE, 5G VoNR and VoWiFi) and Rich Communication Services (RCS) capability integrated on the Edgecore family of OpenWiFi-ready Access Points.

The Ecrio’s FlexIMS™ Software is compliant with the 3GPP and GSMA standards. It offers secured communication and messaging to the mobile Operators across varied radio and core network configurations. It serves a variety of endpoints such as Gateways (FWA and IoT) and Devices (Smartphones, Wearables, AR/VR glasses, and Drones).

Edgecore’s Access Points, with the pre-loaded TIP OpenWiFi Image, offer a highly customizable, open platform featuring Wi-Fi 6 ultra-fast, low-latency technology suited for live audio/video streaming, conferencing, and collaboration. The EAP101 and EAP102 access points include built-in Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and ZigBee, enabling value-added IoT applications for Industrial and Home Automation.

“We are pleased to enter into this partnership with Edgecore, a major player for disaggregated network solutions,” said Michel Gannage, Founder and CEO of Ecrio. “We look forward to delivering our pre-certified, carrier communication and messaging solutions on Edgecore’s OpenWiFi-ready Access Points”.

“We are excited about this collaboration with Ecrio to deliver pre-integrated standards-compliant communication applications on our open access-point platform”, said Tengtai Hsu, Vice President of Edgecore Networks. “Working with Ecrio and the OpenWiFi ecosystem, we look forward to enabling innovative FWA and IoT Services serving the Wireless Operators and Internet Service Providers”.

About Edgecore Networks

Edgecore Networks Corporation is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Accton Technology Corporation, the leading networking ODM. Edgecore Networks delivers wired and wireless networking products and solutions through channel partners and system integrators worldwide for data center, service provider, enterprise, and SMB customers. Edgecore Networks is the leader in open networking, providing a full line of open 1G-400G Ethernet OCP Accepted™ switches, core routers, cell site gateways, virtual PON OLTs, optical packet transponders, and Wi-Fi access points that offer a choice of commercial and open-source NOS and SDN software. For more information, visit wifi.edge-core.com or contact [email protected]

About Ecrio

Ecrio is the leading supplier of 4G and 5G Communications and Messaging client software serving a variety of endpoints such as Gateways (FWA and IoT) and Devices (Smartphones, Wearables, AR/VR glasses, and Drones). Ecrio offers a comprehensive suite of standards-compliant solutions including Messaging (RCS), Voice (VoLTE, VoNR, VoWiFi), and Video calling (ViLTE) Solutions. Built on the patented FlexIMSTM Architecture, and shipped in over 100 million devices, Ecrio’s client software can be pre-integrated on devices, distributed as part of an OTT application, or deployed in the Cloud. With headquarters in Cupertino, California, and presence in Japan, Korea, and India, Ecrio’s global support team works closely with customers across the globe. For more information, please visit www.ecrio.com. FlexIMSTM is a trademark of Ecrio Inc.