Alvarion Debuts First FHSS System For 5 GHz Band

Like every mailing list that focuses on a popular topic, the isp-wireless mailing list (http://www.isp-wireless.com) suffers from high volume, flame wars, off-topic postings and the usual litany of mailing list sins. But very regularly, there is a gem of a posting that makes it worth putting up with the problems and monitoring isp-wireless for yet another month. I didn't spot this thread until I had some extra time to "sort by subject, read the relevant threads", and I found this exchange:

Marlon Schafer: I'm sad to see that there doesn't seem to be any 5 GHz FHSS gear coming though. The guys in the big cities are going to need it sooner than later.
Patrick Leary: [Alvarion does] and we already have it released in the Russian market...

I shouldn't have been surprised. Patrick's employer, Alvarion (http://www.alvarion.com http://www.alvarionusa.com) is one of the most respected, top-tier equipment vendors in the Broadband Wireless Internet Access industry. That such a system would be initially released in a market such as Russia that's more appreciative (especially in a financial, regulatory, and significant demand) of a product of this type isn't surprising. Some advantages of a FHSS system operating at 5 GHz are that 5 GHz is less congested than the 2.4 GHz band, offers a greater amount of spectrum (150 or 200 MHz vs 83 MHz in the 2.4 GHz band) and that FHSS is relatively robust and highly scalable. In contrast, the US market demand for 5 GHz equipment is typically for "higher" speed (>5 Mbps) using higher-order modulation techniques (and thus, somewhat less robust). Exceptions to this (robust modulation techniques used in the 5 GHz band) include Motorola Canopy (BFSK) and RadioLAN (PPM).

To date the only information on this new product I've been able to glean has come from a surprisingly good machine translation (Promt's Online Translator - http://www.translate.ru/eng/) of Alvarion's Russian web page - http://www.alvarion.ru. From the translation, the 5 GHz FHSS product debuted on June 4, 2002 and is an extension of Alvarion's BreezeAccess product line called BreezeAccess V. It's offered in two versions - 5.725-5.875 GHz and 5.15-5.35 GHz. For those that note that 5.15-5.35 is "indoor use only", remember that's a US rule and this unit is designed for, and marketed only in Russia, whose spectrum regulations are not necessarily coincident with US spectrum regulations. My thanks to Marlon Schafer for asking the question, and Patrick Leary for the enlightening response!

I've formally requested a briefing from Alvarion, and assuming the request is granted, I'll be writing about BreezeAccess V and Alvarion's other recent product announcements in depth for the subscribers of my newsletter, FOCUS On Broadband Wireless Internet Access.

Steve Stroh

Copyright (c) 2002-2004 by Steve Stroh. This article originally appeared on my original Broadband Wireless Internet Access Weblog hosted on Radio Userland.