Periodic Reporting for period 2 - TanazaOS (Tanaza OS: the operating system for open Wi-Fi networking devices)
Reporting period: 2020-10-01 to 2021-11-30
Wireless networks are experiencing tremendous traffic growth that is expected to continue for the foreseeable future. Growth will primarily be driven by 4K/8K video, gaming services, 5G mobile networks, and bandwidth-hungry applications. Future networks will need more capacity and reliability as the IoT marketplace changes rapidly. These new connections will impact networks and force businesses of all sizes to upgrade their infrastructures to cope with the demand. However, the deployment is hampered by considerable investment in proprietary solutions from networking incumbents with tightly coupled hardware and software stacks that establish lock-in barriers with high switching costs.
Large-scale innovation is required to overcome resistance to new disaggregated approaches, eliminate barriers, and ensure a competitive and innovative market based on openness and interoperability. TanazaOS provides the networking market with a disaggregated software solution that allows full visibility and management of Wi-Fi networks, breaking incumbent lock-ins thanks to its vendor-agnostic capabilities.
This project is important to society for multiple reasons: 1) it lowers the costs of Wi-Fi connectivity (both capex/opex), making connectivity itself more affordable, hence democratic. 2) thanks to its novel software-only approach, it dramatically reduces distribution costs and marginal costs, increasing allocative efficiency 3) it extends the life of the hardware, promoting second uses and giving back the right-to-repair to users, fostering the transition from a linear to a circular economy 4) it contributes to the transition from a closed IT architecture to an open and interoperable architecture, actively contributing to open source projects. Overall, TanazaOS contributes to the EC goals to reach a future digital and sustainable society.
Large-scale innovation is required to overcome resistance to new disaggregated approaches, eliminate barriers, and ensure a competitive and innovative market based on openness and interoperability. TanazaOS provides the networking market with a disaggregated software solution that allows full visibility and management of Wi-Fi networks, breaking incumbent lock-ins thanks to its vendor-agnostic capabilities.
This project is important to society for multiple reasons: 1) it lowers the costs of Wi-Fi connectivity (both capex/opex), making connectivity itself more affordable, hence democratic. 2) thanks to its novel software-only approach, it dramatically reduces distribution costs and marginal costs, increasing allocative efficiency 3) it extends the life of the hardware, promoting second uses and giving back the right-to-repair to users, fostering the transition from a linear to a circular economy 4) it contributes to the transition from a closed IT architecture to an open and interoperable architecture, actively contributing to open source projects. Overall, TanazaOS contributes to the EC goals to reach a future digital and sustainable society.
In the first 12 months of the project, TanazaOS achieved significant results. Users can install TanazaOS on multiple off-the-shelf Wi-Fi access points in an easy way thanks to the TanazaOS Installer, a patent-protected tool that allows detecting third party devices and install an operating system in one click. Furthermore, some models include TanazaOS as pre-installed, thanks to partnerships with multiple hardware manufacturers. Dedicated cloud versions of the Tanza full-stack have been provided by a first global hardware manufacturer, i.e. Linksys/Belkin, which will push it via its distribution channels. Other vendors showed a strong interest and are following a similar path. In terms of features, the software development is on track as per project plan. The platform can be tested at https://app.tanaza.com(opens in new window).
The project is gaining traction, and awareness around the importance of hardware-software disaggregation is growing, with more and more large entities involved. Facebook Connectivity, the Facebook division whose goal is to connect the next billion people, showed strong interest in Tanaza and discussion to integrate TanazaOS and Express Wi-Fi by Facebook are in an advanced stage. Furthermore, Tanaza became one of the founding members in the Telecom Infra Project (TIP) Open Wi-Fi group, led by Deutsche Telekom and Facebook Connectivity, which has the goal to disaggregate software and hardware in the Wi-Fi space in order to lower CAPEX and OPEX for connectivity providers, a goal that is perfectly consistent with Tanaza’s mission. The momentum is building not only to disaggregate Wi-Fi, but potentially for the whole networking market. Tanaza is evaluating options to expand the addressable market for TanazaOS from Wi-Fi access points only to the whole networking industry, bringing the total addressable market from €5B to €50B.