Houston moving municipal services to wireless using Alvarion gear

After an 18 month trial, the city of Houston is embracing muni-wireless in a big way, tapping Alvarion (NASDAQ:ALVR) to build a city-wide WiMax network over which will ride city services ranging from smart grid meter reading to traffic light management.

Houston is using $5 million in smart city grants and $1.6 million in capital funds to build a 70-site network using Alvarion’s BreezeMax equipment tuned to the 3.65 GHz semi-licensed frequencies. Each site will support three sectors, each of which will extend two miles and support a maximum of 40 Mb/s of capacity. The network will be large enough to blanket most of the Houston city limits and will be put to extensive use.

- Houston will connect more than 500 city buildings and facilities directly to the network, replacing T-1 lines used today to feed them or linking unconnected buildings for the first time.

- It will build an extensive Wi-Fi network using Alavarion wireless distribution hubs and other vendor outdoor access points, using the WiMax network to backhaul those hotspots. Those access points will be used to provide free Internet access to more than 300,000 residents in many of the city’s underserved and impoverished neighborhoods, helping Houston bridge the digital divide primarily through community computing centers.

- The city will move its automated meter reading system onto the WiMax and public Wi-Fi networks, checking in on over 150,000 water meters every 30 minutes.

- 2500 traffic intersections and 1500 school zone signals will be hooked into the network, allowing the city to control them remotely.

- The city will also use the WiMax network to remotely link video surveillance cameras and authorize credit cards at automated parking meters and city lots.

According to Alvarion North America marketing director Raja Gopal, the Houston project is one of the largest and most sophisticated WiMax implementations Alvarion has performed, going well beyond mere broadband access. The BreezeMax equipment will be based on the IEEE 802.16e mobile WiMax standard, but it will be primarily a fixed deployment. In order to overcome line of site issues, Alvarion is building multiple input-multiple output (MIMO) smart antenna technology into the network, allowing signals to wrap around obstacles—something rare in a fixed deployment.

That MIMO technology will allow Houston to deploy nomadic services, Gopal said. For instance, it could start offering WiMax USB cards or WiFi modems Houston school children could use in the classroom and then take home, Gopal said. Public safety would be another option. While the network wouldn’t be able to maintain a connection during a high-speed chase a police mobile command center could easily access the WiMax network once it takes up position, Gopal said.

Correction: Connected Planet received incorrect information on the number of utility meters and city facilities the city Houston is linking to its WiMAX network. The numbers have been changed in the above story.