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BelAir200
Awarded Best WiMAX/Wireless Broadband Product of the Year; BelAir
Networks Wins Wireless Broadband Innovation Award at the Wireless LAN
Event for First WiMAX Mesh
KANATA, Ontario--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 3, 2005--BelAir Networks
announced today that its BelAir200 Wireless Multi-service Switch
Router was named Best WiMAX/Wireless Broadband Product for 2005 at the
Wireless LAN Event in London.
BelAir received the award at the Wireless Broadband Innovation Awards
on April 20. The WBI Awards recognize excellence and innovation in the
field of Wi-Fi, mobile data, and wireless broadband. Each year
companies from around the world compete for the award, and this year
BelAir Networks was one of only four companies who were short-listed
for "WiMAX/Wireless Broadband Product of the Year" before winning the
award. Judging was performed by an independent panel of industry
experts, including Stephen Wellman of FierceWireless and Wireless
Broadband Alliance Chairman Kyong Yu.
"With strong competition for the award, our judges narrowed the list
of eligible companies to those who had demonstrated significant
innovation," said FierceWireless Executive Editor Stephen Wellman. "BelAir
Networks' ability to use a mix of Wi-Fi, WiMAX and 3G cellular
technologies is a very creative solution that illustrates how these
technologies can coexist and complement each other."
The multi-radio BelAir200 is a versatile wireless networking platform
that uses Wi-Fi, WiMAX and 3G technologies to create a wireless mesh
for metro-scale broadband wireless deployments. With the availability
of the Intel(R) Pro/Wireless 5116 broadband interface, the BelAir200
is primed to take advantage of WiMAX's robust service offerings such
as operating the wireless mesh in the licensed bands. Each BelAir200
can incorporate multiple Intel PRO/Wireless 5116 chipsets that can be
used to create long-range point-to-point links for wireless backhaul.
"BelAir has developed a truly unique WiMAX implementation using the
Intel PRO/Wireless 5116 broadband interface combined with their
wireless mesh approach," said Scott Richardson, general manager of
Intel's Broadband Wireless Division. "The multiple point-to-point
links in BelAir's wireless mesh backhaul system are an innovative
example of how WiMAX can be used for wide-area wireless applications."
"Winning the Wireless Broadband Innovation award for the BelAir200 is
an honor for BelAir," said Bernard Herscovich, CEO of BelAir Networks.
"This award acknowledges the strength of the BelAir team who created
the flexible platform that allowed us to quickly incorporate Intel's
chip into our backhaul radio modules and create the first WiMAX mesh."
About the BelAir200
The BelAir200 is a four-radio, wireless multi-service switch router
that is built specifically for outdoor deployments. Each BelAir200
includes an access radio module that uses the 2.4 GHz band to support
Wi-Fi client access. The access radio is connected to integrated
antennas that project Wi-Fi signals over wide open areas and directly
into multi-story buildings from the outside. This design eliminates
the need for, and associated cost of, indoor access points.
Every BelAir200 can also be configured with up to three separate 5 GHz
backhaul radio modules. These radios and their associated antennas are
used to connect multiple BelAir200 systems in a wireless backhaul mesh
that takes client traffic to and from the Internet. The resulting
system delivers unmatched capacity, security and scalability for
large-scale wireless applications.
Shipping since March 2004, the BelAir200 has been deployed in
high-density downtown regions, hotels and resorts, and educational
institutions throughout North America and the U.K.
BelAir's products are focused on wide-area Wi-Fi today, but the unique
multi-radio wireless backhaul mesh architecture can also be applied to
other wireless technologies such as WiMAX and cellular. |
