Aperto sees bounty in ISM ruling

The significance of the FCC’s recent ruling to allow deployment of non-spread spectrum digital modulation schemes in the Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) frequency band near 5.8 GHz may have been lost on many companies, but not Aperto Networks.

The maker of fixed broadband wireless access systems said the ruling will allow its carrier customers, primarily wireless ISPs, to take full advantage of Aperto’s PacketWave technology in a way they couldn’t while previously using it in Unlicensed National Information Infrastructure (U-NII) bands surrounding ISM.

The U-NII and ISM bands completely overlapped between 5.7 GHz and 5.8 GHz, but the ISM band was restricted. “The ISM band used to be only for spread spectrum technology, and now it allows non-spread spectrum modulation techniques,” said Alan Menezes, vice president of marketing at Aperto Networks. “Now, we get to operate at higher power and provide more channels, 16-20 non-overlapping channels versus five.”

The end result is much more capacious, cost-efficient and broader-range deployments than Aperto’s customers have undertaken before. “It makes for a much stronger business model for our operators. It means bigger cell sizes, extended range and more channels for more bandwidth,” Menezes said.

He said the ruling also improves the feasibility of Aperto’s PacketWave solution being used in a “hot-spot echo” type of application, in which the PacketWave’s stronger coverage could be used to back-haul and augment the coverage of a Wi-Fi hot-spot.