BelAir Networks is marrying two industry buzzwords — “WiMax” and “mesh” — into a single product, reports Unstrung.
The company is set to introduce a WiMax radio module for use in wireless mesh networks. The FCC on Tuesday posted its approval of the module, which runs in the WCS (Wireless Communication Service) 2.3GHz band of licensed spectrum in the United States. Officials at BelAir acknowledge the product and say it’s good to go.
“I’m pretty confident this is a first in the industry,” says Steve Rayment, CTO of BelAir. “There are two major applications that we envisage. One is the simpler one, which is backhauling WiFi with a higher reliability. And the other, kind of more interesting one, is using the WiMax technology to create links within the clusters themselves.” The module can be tweaked for either use via a software upgrade, he says.
Most mesh networks operate in unlicensed bands, at 2.4GHz for 5.8 GHz, for backhaul. WiMax is designed to run in a variety of licensed and unlicensed spectrum bands. Licensed spectrum reduces interference.
The short list of people in the United States who have 2.3GHz licenses include BellSouth, AT&T and Verizon.
MegaBroadband (above) of Massachusetts launched the first commercial use of the 2.3GHz WCS spectrum in the U.S. using technology from Navini. They are partnering with BalRivgam, a WCS developer who is providing the spectrum to offer broadband wireless access to parts of Bristol County.
The initial network, located in Bristol County, Mass., will support up to 3,000 users. They plan to serve more than 10,000 users within 2 years. The cost of the network is about $100,000 (based on four base stations) and nearly all the cost of the customer premises equipment (CPE) is borne by the end user. Wireless broadband service costs $20-$40/month.
BalRivgam holds WCS spectrum licenses in several major metro & rural areas, including Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Diego, Boston, Minneapolis-St.Paul, and Milwaukee.
The FCC says carriers owning 2.3GHz WCS spectrum must commercially deploy by mid-2007 or risk losing rights to the spectrum. The 2.3 GHz band is popular in Asia. SK Telecom and Korea Telecom (KT) have 2.3 GHz WiBro licenses thoughout South Korea and plan to launch it this month.
But coexistence in the 2.3 GHz spectrum block has been anything but civil in the United States since 1997 when the digital audio radio service (DARS) came into the lives of the wireless communications services (WCS). DARs uses powerful terrestrial repeaters for satellite radio.
XM satellite radio is buying up more of the 2.3 GHz band. WCS companies have urged the FCC to force XM and Sirius to reduce the power levels to avoid interference with their broadband wireless system. The carriers say that the noise created by DARS towers — some of which operate at 40 kw, compared with the FCC-mandated 2 kw power cap for WCS companies — will overload their systems.
In other news, Fujitsu and Belair announced the availability of a new metro wireless mesh solution for North American telecom carriers, cable/MSO operators and municipalities.
Under the terms of a new agreement BelAir and Fujitsu will resell their entire portfolio of carrier-class Wi-Fi products. The product can be wall, rooftop, tower, pole or strand-mounted for maximum flexibility and supports a variety of line interfaces, including Ethernet and Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) cable modems.
Combining BelAir’s Wi-Fi mesh hardware with Fujitsu’s management software and WiMAX chipset expertise may help differentiate the wireless offering. It will be discussed during this week’s Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) Cable-Tec 2006 conference in Denver.
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