EtherWAN focuses on educating partners

First published at ITS America - June 7, 2019

Steve Frank of EtherWAN

The number of connected devices at intersections and the data they produce has exploded over the past 10 years—leading to greater bandwidth and connectivity requirements that aren’t being met by existing network infrastructure. In steps EtherWAN, a leading supplier of ethernet networking equipment for the ITS market.

Unfortunately, explains Steve Frank, director of sales, EtherWAN, people still do not quite understand how ethernet technology works, how it is designed, implemented and maintained. EtherWAN hopes to change that by taking a hands-on approach to building relationships with partners, integrators and DOT employees.

“We really need people to understand the entire ethernet ecosystem, so we’re building education programmes aimed directly at the people who are opening up cabinets and maintaining critical ITS network infrastructure,” Frank said. “Our goal is to create mini experts in the field.”

EtherWAN has a large footprint in Southern California where the company is headquartered and is currently working with Inglewood, a suburb of Los Angeles. The small city of just over 100,000 residents is the future home to two NFL teams—the Rams and the Chargers—is set to host Super Bowl LVI in 2022 and the 2028 Summer Olympics Opening and Closing Ceremonies. It’s also the location of a large shopping centre that attracts people from all over the region.

Needless to say, transportation is a critical government function, and the city is in the process of installing hundreds of cameras across road corridors. There is no way that the existing network could scale to that level or provide the bandwidth necessary to connect all those devices. Upgrading its backbone network to ethernet backed by EtherWAN’s switches made sense.

Booth 631