New Hardware Family Extends Tropos Networks' Subscriber Capacity Advantage28 April 2005
Tropos Networks, the proven leader in delivering truly ubiquitous, metro-scale, Wi-Fi mesh network systems, today announced that it is shipping a new family of purpose-built MetroMesh routers that greatly extends the subscriber capacity advantage of the patented Tropos Predictive Wireless Routing Protocol (PWRP). The new routers run the recently announced MetroMesh OS release 4 and the Tropos Control element manager release 4. With the new hardware and software, the Tropos MetroMesh architecture provides at least a 7x price-performance advantage versus any competitive approach. With the largest installed base of metro-scale Wi-Fi mesh networks in the world, Tropos proves that PWRP accomplishes with intelligent routing software running on simple-to-install-and-use hardware what other vendors attempt to do with expensive and cumbersome radio designs. The new hardware family is backward-compatible with current Tropos products so its 150+ installed customer base can take advantage of the new functionality immediately.
The new product family includes the Tropos 5210 outdoor MetroMesh router, the Tropos 3210 indoor MetroMesh router and the previously announced Tropos 4210 mobile MetroMesh router. The new product family employs a low-cost, simple to install and use single-radio architecture that operates completely in the mesh-friendly 2.4 GHz frequency band. Leveraging the intelligence of PWRP, the industry's only throughput-maximizing mesh routing protocol, the new MetroMesh routers deliver the highest real-world subscriber capacity with the lowest latencies and at the lowest cost of installation and operation.
"Supporting the state-of-the art applications that are central to our upgraded public safety systems requires unprecedented broadband capacity to public safety officers in the field," said Kerry Wagnon, Program Director for Public Safety Capital Project Office, Oklahoma City. "The Tropos 5210 allows us to deploy the best communications and investigative tools to the field, in the fastest, lowest cost and most reliable way possible. To date, we have installed more than 400 Tropos 5210s and our test results show excellent performance and coverage." Tropos Networks is working with Affiliated Computer Services (ACS), a premier provider of diversified business process and information technology outsourcing solutions to commercial and government clients worldwide, to implement the Oklahoma City network.
"Using the Tropos MetroMesh system, including the new Tropos 5210, finally we are able to deliver the affordable and high quality broadband services that the Moorhead community has long requested," said Bill Schwandt, general manager of Moorhead Public Service and GoMoorhead! "We are implementing our network using the Tropos 5210 because it offers the capacity and multi-use capabilities that we need. Plus, Tropos has emerged as a leader in city-wide deployment of municipal Wi-Fi networks."
Smart Routing Trumps More Radios for Capacity Creation
Concurrent subscriber capacity -- the total amount of bandwidth available to network users at the same time -- is the key performance metric in metro-scale Wi-Fi mesh networks. Using the Tropos 5210 to cover a typical square mile, MetroMesh networks deliver 10-15 Mbps of concurrent subscriber capacity for $68,000 in equipment costs. Other mesh vendors' equipment costs as much as $480,000 to cover the same square mile. Even at this price, these vendors have not proven that they can deliver 10-15 Mbps of subscriber capacity on a metro scale.
"Tropos has learned during the past few years that creating subscriber capacity with routing software by eliminating packet errors and retransmissions is the most cost effective and simple approach to metro-scale broadband," said Ron Sege, president and CEO of Tropos Networks. "We keep our radio technology simple to install, use and upgrade, while others have had to attempt to create capacity with radios because they have not been able to figure out how to do it with software."
New Product Features and Benefits
The new product family, for the first time, brings high capacity OFDM-based 802.11g to metro-scale Wi-Fi networks, as well as continuing to support 802.11b. The family continues the Tropos tradition of leveraging "fast, low cost and simple" off-the-shelf hardware into metro-scale carrier applications. The ruggedized and weatherized Tropos 5210, which is NRTL certified for outdoor installation, transmits at the maximum allowable power level for the country in which it is used (36 dBm EIRP in the U.S.). At -100dBm, it also sports the industry's best receive sensitivity, beating the previous mark of -98 dBm held by the Tropos 5110. The combination of using only the 2.4 GHz band for intra-mesh and client communications, transmitting at the regulatory maximum and delivering the best receive sensitivity enables the Tropos 5210 to provide ubiquitous coverage over metro-scale Wi-Fi mesh networks at the lowest node density in the industry.
The new Tropos product family also provides the most robust support for the multi-use network capabilities of MetroMeshOS release 4. When combined with MetroMeshOS release 4, the new products support up to 4095 VLANs and up to 16 ESSIDs. Enhanced security features include support for 802.1x, Wireless Protected Access (WPA) and AES encryption of inter-router transit links. Quality of Service (QoS) features include prioritization and bandwidth limiting on an application and/or user basis. The multi-use network capability supported by the new product family and MetroMesh OS release 4 allows network operators to create independent user communities on a single network infrastructure, each with its own access, security and QoS policies. Supporting multiple user groups in the same MetroMesh network is key to maximizing return on investment.
Availability
The new Tropos 5210 outdoor MetroMesh router and the new Tropos 3210 indoor MetroMesh router are available immediately through Tropos reseller and integration partners worldwide. The Tropos 4210 mobile MetroMesh router will be generally available in Q3-2005. The Tropos 5210 is approved for use in the U.S., Canada, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, and all European Union countries except Luxembourg.
About Tropos Networks, Inc.
Tropos Networks is the proven leader in delivering truly ubiquitous, metro-scale Wi-Fi mesh network systems. We deliver the fastest, lowest cost and simplest wireless broadband access solutions, as demonstrated by the world's largest installed base of metro-scale Wi-Fi mesh networks. Our innovative MetroMesh(TM) architecture with our patented Predictive Wireless Routing Protocol(TM) (PWRP) allows public safety agencies, municipalities and service providers to quickly and easily deliver city-wide fixed and mobile multi-megabit connectivity for IP-based voice, video and data applications. PWRP is the first and only metro-scale optimized, radio-agnostic, wireless mesh routing protocol, which does with routing software what other approaches attempt to do with expensive hardware. The result is 10x better price/performance than any other approach to the broadband last mile. Tropos Networks is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. For more information, please visit www.tropos.com, call 408-331-6800 or write to info@tropos.com.
Source: bussinesswire
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