Micronet's mid-range networking solutions

By Fauziah Muhtar

ADDING to the networking products available locally are those from Taiwan's Micronet. The company claimed that its mid-range solutions are as just good as the others but cheaper in pricing. Sales manager of Micronet's local distributor FDS Networks (M) Sdn Bhd, said the Micronet products were introduced locally about a year ago and since then, market awareness activities had been conducted.

He said Micronet has a complete range of networking solutions like EtherFast local area network (LAN) solution, wireless LAN, broadband communication, Internet protocol (IP) telephony and networking peripherals for all businesses, from small office-home office up to the enterprise level.

Each of the products comes with various components to make it a complete end-to-end networking solution. "Micronet is very popular in the European market. Before bringing it to the local market, we test them and only after we are satisfied with the quality then we offer it to others," he said.

Among the main features are support for Super G bandwidth or 108 Gigabit for a wireless network that is based on 11g standard or 2.4GHz frequency. "However, for Wi-Fi products, we only sell the 11b standard because there is still no approval on the 11g," he said, adding that the company has wireless outdoor solutions for building-to-building capability. He added that Micronet's IP phone product for voice-over IP component is compatible with Cisco standards while the other features are similar to those of rival products.

The voice over IP solutions (VoIP) are getting popular because they are able to provide good voice quality. "Most of its functions and features are similar to other networking brands like Linksys, D-link or Planet. Its quality is also on par if not better than the popular brands from big players like Cisco or 3Com," he said. However, one difference between Micronet and its competitors is that its networking solutions are not available at retail outlets. This is because FDS Networks is distributing the products through channel partners, he said.

"At the moment, we are not selling Micronet's products at retail outlets because we are focused on selling our expertise in integration and consultation as a value-added service." He said the company has about 200 dealers. Demonstrations will be conducted for firms interested in the products. He added that the company is servicing small and medium-sized enterprises and also working on a government project.