Catching Up With Tanaza- a Different Cloud-Managed Wi-Fi Company

There is life beyond “big Wi-Fi”, but many of us don’t have need or have the opportunity to check it out. One of the things I enjoy about wearing the blogger/analyst hat is getting exposure to those companies, beyond the titans of Silicon Valley. Things are interesting (if not downright refreshing) things down-market, This is where companies look to provide alternatives to smothering licensing costs and to restore some customer independence in an era of Vendor Lock. In that spirit, I recently caught up with my favorite Italian Wi-Fi company, Tanaza.

Simple, Cheap, Multi-Vendor.

Tanaza is a framework for managing wireless access points only. No switches, no security appliances- because not everyone needs or wants full-stack and the associated costs. Tanaza flashes a range of different APs (off-the-shelf and new white-box APs) and manages them nicely with a full-featured management approach. Their firmware is TanazaOS, which works with the Tanaza cloud platform and is also OpenSync-compatible.

The goal is to be “Meraki without the Meraki costs” (not my words) with sub $50 per-AP one-time license cost. Tanaza sees the value as being in their software, with access point hardware being commoditzed at this point.

I will be taking the Tanaza APs for a spin soon, will share the experience in future blogs.

Evolving Since 2016, Alliances With Facebook, Open Sync, others

I’ve been following Tanaza off and on since 2016. They are always evolving, and tend to be a great window into tech goings on beyond the mainstream daily flow we see in the US. The company is working with these partners on bigger initiatives:

• Facebook’s Express Wi-Fi 
• Telecom Infra Project
• Open Sync

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I’ll have more to say about Tanaza after I have get the opportunity to set up their hardware and put the dashboard through it’s paces. Meanwhile, the company is very interested in getting feedback from MSP types and wireless professionals, so feel free to engage.

You can also try their full-featured demo, to get a taste of what Tanaza is all about.