Navini banks on fixed wireless NLOS

ATLANTA--Convinced that near-line-of-sight (NLOS) technology will save fixed wireless Internet services, Navini Networks is using this week’s Supercomm to unveil technology it claims offers zero-install, nomadic wireless high-speed Internet access by conquering the NLOS conundrum.

Navini provides a base station, antenna and CPE and uses the 2.4 GHz ISM (industrial/scientific/medical) and 2.6 GHz MMDS bands. The products are being beta tested with general availability planned for the fourth quarter, although Alastair Westgarth, Navini’s CEO, said he is "not at liberty to mention the specifics" of who’s doing the testing and who will be the first user.

Each base station covers up to 1000 users with data speeds from 1.5 to 5 Mb/s per modem in the company’s first version and up to 8 Mb/s in version two. Both versions will be released this year. Most users will receive symmetrical bandwidth, but those on the outside edges will see their return rates drop, Westgarth conceded.

"Our target customer base is anybody who’s interested in broadband. We talk to ILECs, ISPs and alternatives–T-1 competitors who are looking to provide alternate access versus a T-1 provider," he said.

In each conversation, the company emphasizes the benefits of its patented "smart antenna" technology.

"Our smart antenna allows us to provide enough RF energy to penetrate a building to provide broadband service inside that building," Westgarth said. Navini can serve an engineered radius of 3.5 kilometers using the 2.4 ISM band and 5 kilometers in the Multichannel
Multipoint Distribution Service (MMDS) band, dealing with interference issues that might arise along the way.

"We have layers of capability dealing with interference going all the way from cancellation algorithms to the fact that we’re having a smart antenna thaqt creates loads of energy that goes to one modem on a per-frame basis to forward-error-correction to power control," he said. "We’re testing on a building where there are about four or five 2.4 (GHz) systems, but because of our interference cancellation…we are able to operate at exactly our broadband data rates."
Jim Barthold is Senior Editor at Telephony. He can be reached at jim_barthold@intertec.com.