ClearMesh Networks, an optical last mile start-up based in Pasadena, California, says it has the only commercially available wireless solution capable of targeting the high capacity, high-density metropolitan businesses. Its ClearMesh Metro Grid, announced today, is said to enable service providers to roll out business-class services at 5-100 Mbps to small and medium business markets.
Metro Grid complements existing WiFi and WiMAX service deployments with high bandwidth “wireless fiber” backbones, where fiber runs would require significant up-front investment and months for deployment.
Operating in the license-free band, the ClearMesh solution enables wireless service providers to overcome the crowded RF spectrum and deliver high-quality services in dense metro areas. Dense metro markets with high-bandwidth business-grade services beyond those offered by WiFi or WiMAX solutions are a target market.
The Metro Grid solution is available immediately and is comprised of two products, the ClearMesh 300 node and the ClearMesh Management System.
ClearMesh 300 nodes can be pole or roof-mounted and combines high-capacity Ethernet switching with low-cost wireless optical transport. ClearMesh says its secure optical transmission can distribute up to 300 Mbps of wire-speed, ultra-low latency, and full-duplex service capacity. This allows service providers to deliver enough capacity to concurrently serve thousands of VoIP calls, video streams and Internet sessions.
Suresh Nihalani, CEO, explains the need;
When we moved into our current facilities, we solicited a quote from Time Warner Telecom for a 10Mbps Internet connection. Since TWT has fiber running along Colorado Boulevard, just a few blocks away, they offered to trench the fiber to our building - at a cost of more than $100K, taking 3 months to complete, and we’d have to sign a long term contract for bandwidth.
We were not in the position to sign up for that offer and we suspect that most small and medium businesses would not be willing to do that either.
We are targeting campus networks and multi-SMB locations where customers need 10-100 megabits of bandwidth but have no direct connection to fiber. These customers are not well serviced by the existing copper plant and RF wireless connections typically can’t offer business-grade services at these rates.
ClearMesh says it is the only solution on the market that integrates standards-based LAN switching technology with wireless optical transmission capable of distributing gigabits of business-grade LAN service capacity across metropolitan areas. Several hundred CM 300 nodes can be linked together using mesh networking techniques.
Free Space Optics offer gigabit alternatives for distribution around cities. No need to string fiber - just point and shoot. FSO vendors include LightPointe, Terabeam, Canon and fSONA Systems.
The millimeter wave technology has been dubbed “wireless optics” since it provides gigabit high-speed throughput between transmission sites. In 2003, the FCC established rules to promote use of the “millimeter wave” spectrum in the 71-76 GHz, 81-86 GHz and 92-95 GHz bands.
RF competition includes:
- GigaBeam has a point-to-point wireless solution called WiFiber. It operates in the 71-76 GHz and 81-86 GHz radio spectrum. The current speed achieved by GigaBeam’s WiFiber is one Gigabit-per-second with future products capable of using the 10 Gigabit Ethernet protocol standard.
- Loea Communications (right) has been operating a series of demonstration sites in the 71-76 GHz band over the past two years, including a 2.7 mile gigabit data link to move raw HDTV footage at the 2003 Super Bowl.
- The LMDS band has bandwidth to burn. Hundreds of megabits per second are available in both point to point and multipoint licensed wireless at 28 Ghz, 31Ghz and 39Ghz. XO currently has licenses in the 28 GHz to 31 GHz frequency bands covering 73 major U.S. metropolitan cities. Competitor First Avenue Networks, bought the spectrum assets of bankrupt of ART (at 39GHz) and Teligent (at 24 GHz), and now owns licenses in the top 77 metropolitan areas.
- The range of Unlicensed 60 GHz is generally under a mile. IBM Research has a chipset for for the 57-64 GHz unlicensed band.
- DragonWave uses the unlicensed 24 GHz band. Jeff Thompson, founder of DragonWave says rain and snow isn’t a problem, “You would start seeing weather effects at 38 GHz but not at 24 GHz.”
Related DailyWireless stories include, Jump to Light Speed, See Mesh Run, and Re-animating Backhaul.
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