BWW: Egation deploys Aperto; Orthogon boosts rate

Egation Communications, a wireless ISP serving the multi-dwelling unit market in the southern San Francisco Bay Area, said at Broadband Wireless World 2004 in San Diego this week that it has deployed Aperto Networks’ unlicensed, 5.8 Ghz point-to-multipoint system throughout its coverage area.

Egation said it deployed the vendor’s PacketWave system because its was spectrally efficient enough to perform in a market that is crowded with RF noise from several other wireless ISPs, said Anthony Adams, founder and CEO of Egation Communications. "When we did a site survey of the market, a bunch of other operators had already deployed, and the spectrum was well-saturated," Adams said. "We needed something that could dynamically fit between the pre-selected channels."

The PacketWave system has been deployed by many other service providers in other markets, but the system’s ability to operate in narrow channels serves it well in environments where six or more carriers might co-exist, said Alan Menezes, vice president of marketing at Aperto Networks.

"What’s happening in San Francisco with so many service providers in the area is a sign of what’s coming to other markets," he said.

The deployment with Egation has been in place for about one year, but Menezes said several service providers want to see deployments work successfully for a number of months before the projects are made public.

Elsewhere at the Broadband Wireless World event, Orthogon Systems, a non-line-of-sight system vendor, announced it had boosted is sustained broadband data rate from 28 Mb/s to 33.6 Mb/s, an increase of 20%. The increase was delivered by upgrading the company’s OS-Gemini product with the firm’s new 5820 software release.

The software upgrade also allowed for reduced latency and improved encryption.