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Telecommunications IBM and Alvarion offer municipal WiMAX networks
Telecommunications IBM and Alvarion offer municipal WiMAX networks | IBM and Alvarion offer municipal WiMAX networks |
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| by Stuart Corner | |
| Thursday, 11 May 2006 | |
  
Their joint offering will be based on a pilot wireless network implementation in Fresno, the sixth largest city in California, comprising IBM's suite of mobile applications built on Alvarion's broadband and mobile wireless systems. The two companies claim that their system will support a myriad of applications while enabling citywide broadband coverage at a fraction of the cost of competing systems. "This cooperation now brings affordable broadband within reach of most US communities," they say. The Fresno public safety network is intended to enable police officers to send and receive text messages, still images, and full-motion video using their in-car mobile data terminals and their handheld PDAs. Built by IBM using Alvarion broadband wireless systems and IBM's WebSphere Everyplace Connection Manager, the network provide wireless communications with government-grade wireless encryption, roaming and data compression for the city's 250 police vehicle fleet. Municipal WiFi networks are now widespread in the US, but Alvarion and IBM claim that their solutions, which operates in the 900MHZ band, require less than one-tenth the number of nodes generally required by competing Wi-Fi based solutions "while providing superior net service speeds". However the network does also incorporate Wi-Fi to extend the network to low cost, end user devices. |
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