Telstra is the first telco to supply home-network hardware that supports Wi-Fi EasyMesh

Telstra Smarty Modem Generation 2 modem router press picture courtesy of Telstra

Telstra Smart Modem Generation 2 – the first carrier-supplied modem router to be certified as compatible with Wi-Fi EasyMesh

Article – From the horse’s mouth

Telstra

Telstra offers world-first Wi-Fi EasyMesh™ standard in new Smart Wi-Fi Booster™ 2.0 (Press Release)

Previous HomeNetworking01.info coverage on Wi-Fi EasyMesh

Wi-Fi defines a new standard for distributed wireless netowrks

My Comments

Typically Australian telcos and ISPs who supply a modem-router to their customers as part of providing Internet service are associated with supplying substandard hardware that doesn’t honour current home-network expectations.

This time, Telstra has broken the mould with their Smart Modem Generation 2 modem router and the Smart Booster Generation 2 range extender. Here, these devices support Wi-Fi EasyMesh so they can work with other routers or range extenders that are compliant to this standard.

At the moment, the Smart Modem can handle 4 of the range extenders and Telstra’s marketing collateral specifies that these devices can only work with each other. This is most likely due to the inexistence of routers or range extenders from other suppliers that work to this standard when the Smart Modem Generation 2 and Smart Booster Generation 2 were released.

The media release was talking of 450,000 Generation 2 Smart Modems in service around Australia, most likely due to NBN providing an excuse to upgrade one’s modem-router. As I said in my post about this standard, it is independent of the hardware base that the Wi-Fi infrastructure devices have thus allowing an extant device to benefit from this technology through a firmware upgrade.

Here, Telstra has taken the step of providing the functionality to the existing Generation 2 Smart Modem fleet by offering it as part of a firmware upgrade as what should happen with carrier-supplied network equipment. This will be done in an automatic manner on an overnight basis or when you first connect your modem to the Internet service.

This is showing that a telco or ISP doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel when offering a distributed-Wi-Fi setup. Here, they can have their carrier-supplied Wi-Fi EasyMesh-compliant modem router work with third-party EasyMesh-compliant repeaters that are suited for the job.,

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