MikroTik is a manufacturer of versatile, cost-effective wireless and wired networking solutions, aimed specifically at ISPs, enterprises and residential customers. Their products are powered by RouterOS, a powerful network routing operating system used in thousands of networks across all continents. 

Who is MikroTik and what are their products used for?

Starting with the unlicensed 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequencies, MikroTik have developed a fixed wireless broadband product portfolio that caters for many WISP applications, ranging from short-range high-throughput solutions for urban deployments, all the way to extra-long range, robust wireless connectivity solutions for rural deployments.  

Their product range also includes other aspects of networking, such as indoor and outdoor Wi-Fi, beautiful and powerful 3G and LTE home routers, as well as copper and fibre switching and routing products with port capacities of more than 10Gbps. In their quest to deliver powerful routing power to as many people as possible, their latest products include a range of Core routers that deliver high networking performance at the best price point in the market, and more recently, they launched a range of CAT5/6 copper products to emulate fibre-to-the-home and fire-to-the-business connectivity, at a -reduced price – they call this technology GPEN – Gigabit Passive Ethernet Network. 

History of MikroTik

MikroTik is a Latvian company which was founded in 1996 to design routers and wireless ISP systems. MikroTik has evolved throughout the years and offer provide flexible, feature-rich and cost-effective hardware and software solutions for Internet Service Providers and enterprises across the globe.

Their experience in using industry-standard PC hardware and complete routing systems enabled them to create their own operating system in 1997, called RouterOS. RouterOS provides extensive stability, control, and flexibility for all kinds of data interfaces and routing solutions. In 2002 MikroTik decided to manufacture their own hardware, and the RouterBOARD brand was born. They have resellers across the globe, including South Africa. The latest products from MikroTik are specifically designed to make existing Internet technologies faster, more powerful and affordable to a wider range of users. 

Advantages of using MikroTik in South Africa

Many of MikroTik’s loyal Southern African customer base, not only love the products, but also choose MikroTik specifically for the RouterOS software. MikroTik RouterOS is a router operating system and software that turns regular PC or MikroTik RouterBOARD hardware into a dedicated router. Some of the main features of MikroTik’s RouterOS include 802.11a/b/g/n/ac support, custom Nv2 TDMA protocol, advanced Quality of Service (QoS), stateful firewall, tunnels (VPN), STP bridging with filtering, WDS and Virtual AP, hotspots for Plug-and-Play access, RIP, OSPF, BGP, MPLS routing, Remote WinBox GUI and Web admin, high availability with VRRP, bonding of interfaces, Telnet/mac-telnet/ssh/console admin, real-time configuration and monitoring, 3G/LTE support, OpenFlow support.

MikroTik has a wide range of products, – including indoor and outdoor Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) and wireless access point (AP) solutions, carrier-grade routers with cutting edge multi-core CPUs and their Smart Switch series,  as well as small integrated copper and fibre routers running on RouterOS for assembling your own systems. MikroTik has more than 160 different products available on offer.

MikroTik is not only known for their wide range of different products and technologies but also their easy to use operating system. MikroTik’s experience and knowledge have allowed them to become a global brand, servicing almost every business, from the biggest enterprise corporate giants to home users – MikroTik has a solution for every need!