Western Multiplex Corp., a maker of high-speed wireless networking products, announced Thursday its new 100 Mbps, 5.8 GHz wireless Ethernet bridge.
The new product is an addition to the companys existing Tsunami product line. It has a range of up to 8 miles — 3 miles longer than the companys top dual-band offering, according to company officials.
The Tsunami 100 Mbps bridge also doubles the existing capacity of the top Tsunami product currently available in many countries. In order to meet requirements for international deployment, the new bridge operates in a single frequency band at 5.8 GHz, rather than in 5.8 and 5.3 GHz range, company officials said.
With single frequency band limitations as well as the limited availability of high-speed telecommunications infrastructure in many foreign countries, Western Multiplex is clearly seeking a market opportunity overseas with the new Tsunami product.
“With this offering we are basically packing all of that bandwidth into a single band, the high band, 5.8, and as a result, we can offer this product in just about every country around the globe,” said Amir Zoufonoun, president of Western Multiplex.
The new Tsunami 100 Mpbs 5.8 GHz product also includes two T1 or E1 (the European version of T1) “wayside” connections, which do not rob bandwidth from the 100 Mbps channel, according to officials.
“It gives you a couple of E1s as additional side channels that you can use to connect your PBXs between buildings. You can connect all your phone lines, all your LANs and youre done, you dont need to deal with the phone company,” said Zoufonoun.
Zoufonoun said the hybrid products containing the wayside channels have been very popular in the U.S. and internationally. “They are more reliable, they give more bandwidth, they can put video over them, they are full-time on, and the cost is a lot lower,” he said.
The E1 product will be available at the end of March, and the T1 version will be available in mid-April. The list price is $19,995.
The new product will be on display at the CeBIT 2002 trade show in Hannover, Germany from March 13-20.