Gaurav: Hello, Welcome Lokesh! Thank you for joining in today. Big congratulations on your launch of the world's first real-time Wi-Fi prioritization solution name Rezrv.
Lokesh: Thank you. Thanks a lot. Very nice talking to you. It's early morning here in California. And the weather's nice outside as usual.
Gaurav: Well, it really looks very warm in there with your bonfire. I hope so.
Lokesh: Yes.
Gaurav: So Lokesh, tell us what Wi-Fi prioritization means? And why is it an important thing?
Lokesh: Well, prioritization is a big word. I mean, if you look at it from a consumer standpoint, since everyone is on the network, and is working on Wi-Fi, what effectively people want is that someone who is doing video conferencing like we are doing right now, it should not get interrupted, because we have got some big file download started by someone or someone starts to watch the Netflix, the concept essentially that people needs to be lot more application-aware. Which application needs to get priority or the application? And that needs to be decided by the router? Unfortunately, the current day routers don't do that. And that's all innovation bringing to the router space.
Gaurav: Well, that sounds very scientific, in simpler terms. How does this work? How does Rezrv works?
Lokesh: Rezrv is aware of which application you are running on which device. And so once we know that information, we know that your conferencing software is going to need a certain amount of network bandwidth. And we know that it needs to have priority over say, a YouTube video, or if your YouTube video needs to run properly, we know what kind of bandwidth is going to be needed. So on each application, and each device basis, we could figure out that you get the required quality of experience, knowing all that information, so we come in between and the software does its magic, and make sure that each application gets just the required bandwidth, and I'm looking for a word that would substitute for bandwidth, because bandwidth is also a really big word. But that's the basic concept.
Guarav: So you mean to say that if I have Rezrv installed, that will mean that I will be able to have a better YouTube or Netflix experience on my current Wi-Fi if it has been utilized by various devices at the same time.
Lokesh: Yes, essentially that. And without spending extra money with your service provider, if you need 25 megabits or 50 megabits, and you're running three or four devices with HD video, you don't necessarily need to buy a 100 megabit connection, because that would be spending money. Instead, you can use the current bandwidth more efficiently than the nearest example I can take is; if you are spending some money at home and various things, one thing would be to make sure that you are spending it nicely distributed between various needs. Or you just don't care and continue to spend as much for whatever you feel like at the moment. So essentially, it's the value-added that we're providing to the consumer in making sure that they don't have to spend extra money on their network needs. It's especially important these days because virtually the whole home in school and entertainment and office work is on the same network. So we are coming in between and making sure that we are wisely spending the network resources.
Gaurav: Great. So that means that I get better value out of the same money that I'm spending on my current plans.
Lokesh: Yes, so your quality of experience increases everything in the networking world is now being measured in the quality of experience. So the main problem that is happening is that all the applications have gone greedy in the sense that YouTube sometimes requires four times the bandwidth because it goes and buffers a lot of data that make sure that YouTube users get a really good experience. But what it does is that if there is a video conferencing going on, at the same time, it will start to get affected because while YouTube may require some network resources, it's asking for more for several seconds and so you will see your video conferencing fluctuating in the quality. We make sure that we understand that seeing an HD movie on downloading from YouTube requires a certain amount of network resources. And it cannot ask for more. Once YouTube on its sites understands that it cannot ask for more. It stops asking and continues to give you your HD quality. So everyone is happy in this kind of scenario. Right now the situation is that all applications are becoming hungry for bandwidth so that for that particular application, the user has the best experience. And that is why we have to step in to make sure that everyone plays by the correct rules. So overall experience across multiple applications is uniformly good for the end consumer.
Gaurav: That's fantastic. That's good to understand the way you have expressed it. So tell us, what are the other things Rezrv can do besides data prioritization.
Lokesh: Rezrv gives you a very good view into how your resources are getting used, it gives you, for instance, the graph of your bandwidth use across various applications. So if you have wasted in a particular week, say, you know, 40 hours of your life watching Netflix, some feedback comes to you that, you know, maybe you're not doing as much work and maybe you're watching too much Netflix, or spending too much time on Facebook, or you spend a lot of time is spent 60 hours in video conferencing. So that means you're doing a lot of work. So that's also feedback that you can take to your office boss and say, Look, when I spend 60 hours, I am doing really hard work, I need a raise!. This kind of understanding is possible.
You can also do parental control, which is very important these days because everyone is online all the time, what kids are doing, especially teenage kids or pre-teen kids is important. So you need to make sure that during school days, they can only watch movies only for an hour. So by the weekend, you want to have them watch a little bit more, you want to block ads, which are coming to your computer, so we can filter out those ads. So there are a lot of things which we can possibly do under Rezrv.
Gaurav: Well, basically, it is just not data prioritization, it extends into kind of you can utilize it as parental control or restriction or a manager of your time and the applications.
Lokesh: Yes. But having said all that, I will come back that Wi-Fi is like a black card to people, it creates a lot of problems in people's life. And people throw a lot of money into solving those problems. And it has become a key aspect of what you do during your day. It needs to be simplified. It needs to go to users who are not necessarily network engineers, or IT managers and be able to talk and figure out how to do those tasks simply without having to know the nuts and bolts of networking. So that essentially in a large sense, is what we are trying to do at a very high level to simplify Wi-Fi to a level that people can get optimal performance and can get the desired result of this really important aspect of our life at this point.
Gaurav: So how can I use reserve at my home and office if I want to use it?
Lokesh: There are several ways we really want this concept to pick up and we are allowing software download, which can be run on a certain set of routers that are there on our websites and this is for free. We are working with several router manufacturers and several ISP's who will give you pre-installed software. We are also introducing a network Smartware router, that router will come with the software pre-installed. So we have opened up several channels and in the coming months, you'll find it on Amazon and Walmart and all of the retail channels too.
Gaurav: Alright, and you're saying that the software for the introduction period is kind of free if I have the compatible router with me.
Lokesh: Yes, you can right now go to the website have Taniv4 look at the developer section. And you'll find a whole lot of routers listed out there. You can download and install software on those routers. It's a very straightforward process.
Gaurav: Great. All right, you did mention kids wasting time or spend too much time on their gadgets and using the internet. So for many parents Who are now working from home or they're schooling kids from home? Is there a mechanism that Rezrv can help them with to set a time limit or restrict the Wi-Fi usage?
Lokesh: Yeah, so you can go to your smart speaker and say, I want to make sure that there are no entertainment channels from Hulu and Netflix available during weekdays, more for more than two hours. and on weekends, you can have up to six hours of watching. That will make sure that we will accumulate for all the kids for each kid how much time they're spending on watching various entertainment channels and make sure that they don't exceed their limit, and stop it after the timer. So the idea would be to go through a conversational agent, or through a smart speaker, Alexa or Google Home, and be able to do all these things without having to even go up to your app, we have got a very nice app, both on iOS and Android app stores. But we would dream that people actually don't even have to go to the app and can just tell what they intend to their smart speakers. And we'll be able to figure out and do what the end-user wants. So we are putting a lot of our r&d research into making that engine better.
Gaurav: So you mean to say that I don't have to go to my computer settings and be half of the engineer to change those kinds of timings and privatization, I can say voice commands and it could happen.
Lokesh: Yeah, like, you can say that. There should be no Netflix during the day, and the router will understand that command and make sure that for the remainder of the day, no one can have Netflix streaming so people can get to their home works and regular office work, etc, without any problem.
Gaurav: That's amazing. So besides, in the home location, are you guys also planning with your Wi-Fi management solution to be customized for commercial applications? Do you have any examples that you can share with us?
Lokesh: Yes, so we have observed in the market that people have started to buy two more two routers, and have two parallel networks inside the house, one for office and one for home. What we are offering in the not coming division, but the division after that facility by which there could be two virtual routers on the same router, once part of the network would be connected to your office and one part to your home. And you would be able to select which one you want to connect with given times. And none of the home networks, things are going to go on to the office network. And we keep the two virtually separated. This concept has been very popular in the computer industry where people are running a virtual machine. similar kind of concept we are bringing to the router moving forward. And that I think would be useful because the work at home has become the definitive standard with all companies and especially IT workers but in general, and we want to facilitate it in a way that it is valuable to the employers. And we feel that this kind of service to the employers where they can make sure that certain amount of network resources are devoted to the office work during office times. Those kinds of virtualization concepts we can bring moving forward. And that's just one of the examples that we're looking at.
Gaurav: So where can I find more information about the software? And how can I download it?
Lokesh:The software is there on the Tantiv4 website- https://www.tantiv4.com/developers/rezrv