LOS GATOS, Calif, - Jan. 22, 2007 - Firetide, Inc., a leading manufacturer of multi-service wireless mesh networks, today announced its new HotPort 6000 indoor and outdoor mesh nodes featuring a dual radio backhaul that enables systems integrators and administrators to provide increased bandwidth and overall reliability for large municipal, industrial, and long range transportation networks.
"The HotPort 6000 mesh nodes represent a major breakthrough for the mesh networking industry by creating new benchmarks for wireless performance, reliability, and flexibility," said Bo Larsson, CEO of Firetide. "We also enhanced our mesh software so it now provides highly intelligent bandwidth optimization for the dual radio configuration."
Firetide has multiple patents on the technology that controls traffic on the dual radio backhaul and enables the mesh to be used for a broad range of services and applications. The technologies covered by these patents include radio packet switching, topology balancing, and radio channel allocation.
"The network is not only extremely efficient, but also easy to set up. Each node can reconfigure both of its radios automatically eliminating the need to manually set the frequencies and channels for each radio on the mesh," said Larsson.
"Firetide's dual-radio technology with increased bandwidth significantly raises the bar for wireless muni and enterprise networks," said Berge Ayvazian, chief strategy officer for the Yankee Group. "The multiple radio configuration options increase the overall reliability, capacity and scalability of wireless infrastructures so they can be capable of supporting a growing number of new network services and end users."
The HotPort 6000 mesh nodes feature high powered radios that support both licensed and unlicensed bands eliminating the need to purchase and install separate radios for each spectrum. Bandwidth for both radios can be combined to provide 70 Mbps throughput for "fat" point-to-point backhaul links or for high resolution video surveillance networks. The radios can also be set to deliver a sustained 35 Mbps bandwidth across an unlimited number of hops if a multi-hop or linear network topology is required.
To measure the bandwidth of the new mesh nodes, Firetide used test equipment and methodologies from VeriWave, a leading developer of performance analysis tools for wireless LANs. "The VeriWave test methodology represents a high bar that is now the industry standard for quantifying wireless metrics," said Eran Karoly, vice president of marketing for VeriWave. "We reviewed Firetide's test plans and measurements to verify the accuracy and repeatability of the results. Firetide's use of VeriWave test tools and methodologies, and these impressive results, ensure that their equipment is built to the highest performance and quality standards. This will surely stimulate the growth of high speed multi-service wireless networking."
For Wi-Fi access, customers can connect Firetide HotPoint access points directly to the HotPoint 6000 enclosures. Firetide uses separate enclosures and processors for its mesh nodes and access points to maintain modularity and to ensure mesh performance remains unaffected whenever access points are used.
Like Firetide's HotPoint access point product lines, the HotPort 6000 mesh nodes are available in both indoor and outdoor models to ensure a seamless transition between indoor and outdoor areas. Lower cost single radio versions of the mesh nodes are also available and are fully compatible with the dual radio models.
Firetide's HotPort 6000 mesh nodes will be available for delivery by March 1. Firetide products are sold through channel partners including distributors, value added resellers (VARs) and systems integrators.
