Company

By 2002, several companies were developing systems to centralize wireless management. IT staff could configure one central controller that in turn managed access points. Controller-based systems improved the wireless LAN scale, but only replicated the microcell architecture used by the isolated access points. Though managed together, each access point's coverage area was still an island. Radio interference was still a problem and clients could still be confused when moving between them.

Dr. Vaduvar Bharghavan, now CTO of Meru Networks, saw a better way. He envisaged the All-Wireless Enterprise: an organization that would no longer need wires for client connections because wireless could become as secure, reliable and easy to manage as Ethernet. The company's founding team set about making that vision a reality, using the principles of an advanced cellular network in the wireless LAN.

Meru designed wireless LANs that offered single-channel operation, centralized control of all air traffic and smooth handoffs – all features that are now standard in cellular networks. Recognized by Gartner as the first Fourth Generation wireless system, Meru's early innovations led directly to virtualized Wireless LANs, the technology that threatens to end wired Ethernet's dominance at the network edge.